Norman Fowler Leyden
(born October 17, 1917), is an American, conductor, arranger, and clarinetist. He has worked in film and television and is perhaps best known as the conductor of the Oregon Symphony Pops orchestra.
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Education
Norman Leyden was born in
Springfield, Massachusetts to James A. and Constance Leyden. He graduated from
Yale University in 1938, attended
Pierre Monteux's Domaine Musicale in
Hancock, Maine in 1961, and earned a master's (1965) and doctoral degree (1968) from
Columbia University (where he also taught for several years).
Music Career
He began his professional music career playing bass clarinet for the
New Haven Symphony Orchestra while attending Yale. Leyden joined the
United States National Guard in 1940 for a planned year of volunteer work and enlisted as an infantry sergeant on February 24, 1941 in
New Haven, Connecticut. His enlistment papers gives his height as six foot two and his weight as 165 and gives his specialty as a musician or band leader. During
World War II he served in the
Army Air Force for five years.
He was married in 1942 in Duval County, Florida to Alice Curry Wells.
While Leyden was serving as a
master sergeant in
Atlantic City and rehearsing music,
Glenn Miller heard Leyden perform. Miller said to him "For a Yale man, you don't play bad tenor".
Miller called on Leyden in September 1943 to conduct the
Moss Hart Army Air Force spectacular "Winged Victory". This was a big musical play in
Broadway's
Shubert Theatre with an all service band. The show started in November 1943. Leyden next requested the opportunity to arrange for Glenn Miller, and was accepted and served as one of three arrangers for
Glenn Miller's Air Force Band. His first arrangement for the band was "Now I Know". Sometimes, Leyden would write more complexity into the score than was desirable. Miller told him once "Hey Norm, it was a nice try. But remember it ain't what you write, it's what you
don't
write".
Leyden also arranged for the reorganized
Glenn Miller Orchestra of
Tex Beneke.
Between 1956-1959, he was musical director for
Arthur Godfrey's radio program. He also worked as musical director on
The $64,000 Question
(including writing the
theme music), and as the musical director of
The Jackie Gleason Show
, originally called
You're in the Picture
(1961). He also organized the Westchester County Youth Orchestra in
White Plains, New York in 1957, (an organization he led until 1968).
As a staff arranger at
RCA Victor he composed and arranged music for
Disney and other musicals including
Cinderella
,
Alice in Wonderland
,
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
,
Winnie the Pooh
,
Peter Pan
, and
Pinocchio
.
Leyden also conducted and arranged for many well-known artists including
Tony Bennett,
Don Cornell,
Johnny Desmond,
Gordon MacRae,
Mitch Miller,
Ezio Pinza,
Frank Sinatra, and
Sarah Vaughan.
Leyden moved to
Portland, Oregon in 1968 to take over the
Portland Youth Philharmonic (then the Portland Junior Symphony) while long-time conductor
Jacob Avshalomov went on sabbatical. He also joined the music department at
Portland State University.
He began his long-standing relationship with the
Oregon Symphony in 1970 as associate conductor. This lasted for 29 seasons plus 34 seasons as conductor of the Oregon Symphony Pops. Over one million people attended his Oregon Symphony Pops concerts. In May 2004, he retired and was honored with the lifetime title laureate associate conductor.
Leyden also served as the music director of the Seattle Symphony Pops for eighteen seasons, and as conductor of the
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Prairie Pops for eight seasons. He also conducted the
Chappaqua Orchestra as its second music director before moving to the West Coast.
In August 2000, he led the Air Force Falconaires of the
Air Force Band of the Rockies in a
PBS television special
Glenn Miller's Last Flight
.
Leyden has worked with
Portland-based band
Pink Martini and can be heard performing a clarinet solo on the title track of the band's second album,
Hang On Little Tomato
.
Leyden's personal music score library, housed in an airy basement studio, includes over 1,200 symphonic arrangements and 300 big band works. Leyden continues to practice the clarinet every day. He remains married to Alice. On Wednesday October 17, 2007 he conducted a 90th birthday concert with the 17-piece Norman Leyden Big Band at the
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, titled Norman's Big Band Birthday Concert.
Awards
- Oregon Governor's Arts Award, 1993
References