[1] Drummond was born in London, the son of a Scottish Sea Captain in the British India line and an Australian singer, principally of lieder.
Kenneth Tynan queried why Cambridge was "wasting time on trash like this when they could be producing Brecht",[3] but it did gain a run a London's Arts Theatre.
In 1961, he went with Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day and David Attenborough to make a series of documentary films in the Soviet Union, selected with his Russian language skills in mind.
Drummond's period at the Festival was particularly successful, and Norman Lebrecht commended him in a tribute for his multi-disciplinary approach in a celebration of 'fin de siècle' Vienna in 1983.
[8] In his Guardian obituary, Humphrey Burton listed several highlights from his tenure in Edinburgh: operas in 1980 including Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse, for international theatre 1979 with the Rustaveli Company, Georgia, and 1980 for Bill Bryden's adaptation of the York and Wakefield mystery plays for the National Theatre, and starting a book fair and commissioning the Queen's Hall as a festival chamber music venue.
[1] Humphrey Carpenter wrote that Drummond viewed Radio 3's audience as consisting of "thirty minority tastes, each of which is characterised by its intense dislike of the other twenty-nine".
[2] Having chosen not to renew his contract as Radio 3 Controller for a second five-year term in 1992, he became openly critical of the Birt regime at the BBC, for its managerial and populist instincts.