Delos classical music label founder dies

SANTA MONICA, Calif., March 29 (UPI) -- Amelia Haygood, who turned her love of classical music into the independent classical label Delos, died of cancer in her Santa Monica, Calif., home at age 87.

Delos International, originally called Delos Records, recorded, among others, conductors James DePreist and Gerard Schwarz; violinist Corey Cerovsek; cellists Janos Starker and Zuill Bailey; and the company's vice president for artists and repertory, Carol Rosenberger herself, a pianist, The New York Times said.

The former clinical psychologist turned to the recording business after she found psychology had been "taken over by all the touchy-touchy types," she said in a 1995 interview.

She and her husband, J. Douglass Haygood, were passionate classical music fans and in 1973 started Delos in her home. She named the company after the Greek island, said to be the birthplace of Apollo, the god of music and poetry.

By the mid-1980s, the company was issuing its music exclusively on CDs, among the first classical labels to do so.

Haygood, who died March 19, is survived by a stepson, 13 step-grandchildren and several step-great-grandchildren.