- Anderson's "The Typewriter," a pops-concert staple composed in 1950, actually features a manual typewriter on the stage with the orchestra. In a 1970 interview, Anderson described how he made the typing sound a part of the music, not just an added effect. "We have two drummers," Anderson said. "A lot of people think we use stenographers, but they can't do it because they can't make their fingers move fast enough. So we have drummers because they can get wrist action."
Leonard Slatkin, conductor of the new Anderson CDs, has played a few typewriters himself on the concert stage and says it's hard. "You have to tamp down all the middle keys so that only the two outside ones work. And you have to start with your right hand in order to be able to hit the carriage return where Anderson specifies.". - His "Syncopated Clock" was the theme song for "The Late (and Late, Late) Show(s)", WCBS-TV's movie programs that usually ran all through the New York night into early morning, this before the advent of late-night original programming, such as Late Show with David Letterman (1993). Another Anderson song, "The Phantom Regiment", was the theme song for the "Four O'Clock Movie" that was shown weekdays on another New York station in the early 60s.
- Leroy Anderson arranged many pieces for Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra throughout the years.
- His "Forgotten Dreams" was for many years in the 1970s the closing theme of Friday editions of New York station WABC-TV's Eyewitness News (1968).
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988.
- His "Sleigh Ride" was premiered by the Boston Pops Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Fiedler. It became one of the most famous of modern Christmas compositions, and one of the Pops' best-selling recordings. They re-recorded it many times, and at least one of their versions of it is still in print today.
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1620 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
- Leroy Anderson was Director of the Harvard University Band through circa 1933, entertaining Class of '37 undergrads such as 'Franklin Roosevelt Jr.' & "Bill Haskell", dad of L.A. actor-narrator, Christopher Haskell.
- Over the years, Leroy's pieces have been employed as themes in both radio and television. In the early 1950's, CBS-TV Channel 2 in NYC chose The Syncopated Clock as the theme for its program of movies called"The Late Show". CBS used it for more than 25 years. Plink, Plank, Plunk! was known to many in the '50's as the theme for the TV game show "I've Got a Secret", and The Typewriter has become a favorite for a variety of radio news productions.
- Leroy's mother, Anna Margareta (Jönsson) Anderson, came from Stockholm. Anna was an organist at the Swedish Mission Church in Cambridge.
- Anderson would occasionally appear on the Boston Pops regular concerts on PBS to conduct his own music while Fiedler would sit on the sidelines. For "The Typewriter" Fiedler would don a green eyeshade, roll up his sleeves, and mime working on an old typewriter while the orchestra played.
- As a graduate student Leroy became Director of the Harvard University Band and wrote numerous clever arrangements for the band that brought him to the attention of Arthur Fiedler, Director of the Boston Pops Orchestra. His first arrangement for Fiedler in 1936 was a medley of Harvard songs - Harvard Fantasy.
- "We were a musical family," Leroy said. "My father played the mandolin, mother played the guitar and I accompanied them on the piano. Those were happy evenings doing Gilbert and Sullivan, 'Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes' and all the other songs in 'The Golden Songbook.' Radio was in the earphone stage then and we had to make our own entertainment.".
- In 1958, Anderson composed the music for the Broadway show Goldilocks with orchestrations by Philip J. Lang. Even though it earned two Tony awards, Goldilocks did not achieve commercial success. Anderson never wrote another musical, preferring instead to continue writing orchestral miniatures.
- For his contribution to the recording industry, Leroy Anderson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1620 Vine Street. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988 and his music continues to be a staple of "pops" orchestra repertoire.
- At the start of World War II Leroy was drafted as a private into the U.S. Army, which made use of his fluency in languages. He married Eleanor Jane Firke before shipping off to Iceland where he served as a translator and interpreter in the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps, beginning in 1942. While there he wrote an Icelandic Grammar for the U.S. Army.
- Anderson's musical style employs creative instrumental effects and occasionally makes use of sound-generating items such as typewriters and sandpaper. (Krzysztof Penderecki also used a typewriter in his orchestral work "Fluorescences" (1961-62), but with a decidedly less humorous effect.).
- He was assigned to the Pentagon as Chief of the Scandinavian Department of Military Intelligence.
- In 1936 his arrangements came to the attention of Arthur Fiedler, who asked to see any original compositions that he could use to make the concerts he gave as the 18th conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA more enjoyable for his audiences there. Anderson's first work was the 1938 Jazz Pizzicato, but at just over ninety seconds the piece was too short for a three-minute 78-RPM single of the period. Fiedler suggested writing a companion piece and Anderson wrote Jazz Legato later that same year. The combined recording went on to become one of Anderson's signature compositions.
- In 1938 the Boston Pops performed his first composition, Jazz Pizzicato. It was an immediate hit. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra were the first to perform and record many of his compositions.
- In 1925 Anderson entered Harvard University, where he studied musical harmony with Walter Spalding, counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, canon and fugue with William C. Heilman, orchestration with Edward B. Hill and Walter Piston, composition with Walter Piston and double bass with Gaston Dufresne. He also studied organ with Henry Gideon.
- Anderson became a reserve officer and was recalled to active duty for the Korean War.
- In 1951 Anderson wrote his first hit, "Blue Tango," earning a Golden Disc and the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts. "Blue Tango" was the first instrumental recording ever to sell one million copies.
- Famous peaces of Anderson were beside "Blue Tango" probably "Sleigh Ride" and "The Syncopated Clock." "Sleigh Ride" was not written as a Christmas piece, but as a work that describes a winter event. Anderson started the work during a heat wave in August 1946. The Boston Pops' recording of it was the first pure orchestral piece to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Music chart.
- A gifted linguist, Leroy eventually mastered Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese in addition to the English and Swedish of his upbringing. Not thinking that a career in music held much promise, Anderson intended to become a language teacher. He applied for and was offered a position at a private school in Pennsylvania. At the last moment he decided to give music a final try and sent his regrets to the school in Pennsylvania.
- He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Magna cum laude in 1929 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In Harvard University Graduate School, he studied composition with Walter Piston and Georges Enescu and received a Master of Arts in Music in 1930.
- His parents were Swedish immigrants who had come to the United States as children. They lived at 269 Norfolk Street in Cambridge. His father, Bror Anton Anderson (B.A. Anderson), came from Övarp, Norra Strö, near Kristianstad in the province of Skåne. Bror worked as a postal clerk at the Central Square post office in Cambridge and played the mandolin. He changed the spelling of his first name to Brewer, the pronunciation of which was similar to his Swedish name - Bror.
- Leroy's mother Anna gave Leroy his first piano lessons starting at age five, "as soon as his feet could reach the pedals.".
- In 1995 the new headquarters of the Harvard University Band was named the Anderson Band Center in honor of Leroy Anderson.
- Anderson was so much in his head that his son Rolf describes him as "pacing" through the house after dinner, unaware of everything around him.
"I remember once I was reading something interesting in a book, and as he walked through the living room, I said, 'Dad, you'll never believe what it says here in this book. It says ...' And then I looked up, and he had left the room. He really had never heard me at all, and that made it very clear to me that there was no point in trying to talk to him at this time of the day. He was busy thinking of music.". - In 2006, one of his piano works, "Forgotten Dreams", written in 1954, became the background for a British TV advertisement for mobile phone company '3'. Previously, Los Angeles station KABC-TV used the song as its sign-off theme at the end of broadcast days in the 1980s, and Mantovani's recording of the song had been the closing theme for WABC-TV's Eyewitness News for much of the 1970s.
- His pieces, including "The Typewriter," "Bugler's Holiday," and "A Trumpeter's Lullaby" are performed by orchestras and bands ranging from school groups to professional organizations.
- Leroy Anderson's composing career took a major step up in 1950 when Decca Records offered Anderson a contract to record his music for Decca. From 1950 to late 1962 Anderson's compositions received their first performances during recording sessions conducted by Anderson. Decca arranged for a studio orchestra for these recording sessions. The musicians were in many cases the "first chair" of their particular section of New York's world famous orchestras.
- New Haven Register' music critic Gordon Armstrong described Anderson in 1947 as being a "triple threat in music - arranger, composer, conductor.".
- Although Leroy Anderson enjoyed performing as a guest conductor, he did not accept every invitation to conduct. As he said to his family, "If I had accepted every offer that I received to guest conduct, I would never have had the time I needed to compose music.".
- Died of lung cancer age 66 at his home in Woodburn, Connecticutt.
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