Salvatore Dell'Isola
Salvatore Dell'Isola (January 4, 1901 – March 13, 1989) was a conductor who acted as music director for several of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals on Broadway, among others. He won a Tony Award as music director of Flower Drum Song. Life and career Dell'Isola was born in Province of Salerno, Italy, and moved to New York with his family in 1907 but returned to Salerno to study the violin at the conservatory there, playing in opera orchestras all over the country by age 12. He continued to play the violin in the U.S. in opera, vaudeville, movies and other entertainments. He also scored foreign films and radio programs for RKO. He began his professional conducting career on the radio and in vaudeville shows. In the 1920s, he was engaged as the conductor of the RKO orchestra and played the violin in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for ten years. He was hired by Rodgers and Hammerstein to conduct a touring production of Oklahoma! in the mid-1940s. Dell'Isola first music directed on Broadway for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro in 1947. His other Broadway musicals were South Pacific (1949); Me and Juliet (1953); On Your Toes (1954 revival); Ankles Aweigh (1955); Pipe