The former CEO of Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society Mary Deissler died on Monday after a long struggle with brain cancer. Mary earned the H&H international attention by persuading Christopher Hogwood to become artistic director in 1986. Hogwood converted the ensemble into a period-instrument group operating at the cutting edge of historically authenticated performance.
Full obituary follows.
Born on December 30,1955, in Oneonta, New York, to George and Carol Baker, Mary was the eldest of six siblings — Mark, Margaret, Patricia, Christopher, and Andrew. She married James Deissler in 1987, and together they raised their children, Benjamin and Eliza, in Boston, Massachusetts…