(b Aberdeen, March 8, 1934). Scottish composer and conductor. He attended the RAM (1957–61), where he studied composition with Berkeley and the clarinet with Brymer, Kell and de Peyer. He later studied conducting with Boult. McLeod has held several teaching positions: as director of music at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh (1974–85), visiting lecturer at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (1985–9) and at the RAM (1993–6), lecturer at Napier University of Edinburgh (1989–93), and as head of composition for film and television at the London College of Music (1991–7). From 1980 to 1982 he was associate composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Many of McLeod's early works include passages based on aleatory techniques in the manner of Lutosławski. In The Shostakovich Connection (1974) such sections, here based on the 12-note theme which opens Shostakovich's Twelfth String Quartet, are woven into a set of conventionally conducted variations on a theme from the same composer's Fifth Symphony. Other works of the 1970s, such as the ...