Dingwall Fleary Jr., longtime conductor of orchestras in Northern Virginia, died on New Year’s Eve at 82.
A native of St. Louis, Fleary was appointed in 1972 as the first conductor of the McLean Chamber Orchestra, now the McLean Symphony, and since 1996 had led the Reston Community Orchestra. A pianist, harpsichordist and organist, he was music director of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Bethesda, MD.
A graduate of the University of Kansas and Northwestern University who also studied at L’Accademia Musicale di Chigiana in Siena, Italy, Fleary taught at Bennett and Vassar colleges in New York in the 1960s.
He was the playwright and star of “The Measure of a Man: the Life of Paul Robeson,” which was premiered in 1987 and subsequently staged on a US tour.
Fleary had served as music director and coordinator of the International Children’s Festival at Wolf Trap and as a four-term board member of the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
An obituary in the Tysons Reporter:
McLean Symphony founder and longtime conductor Dingwall Fleary dies
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