The music of Leroy Anderson is firmly entrenched in American popular culture. A composer of distinctive and delightful miniatures, his best-known works include Sleigh Ride, The Syncopated Clock and Blue Tango. He wrote nearly all his pieces originally for orchestra, then transcribed most of them himself for band and often for other groups of instruments as well. Mitchell Parrish added lyrics to seven of the works after the pieces were written. "Leroy Anderson is considered by many to be one of America's four greatest 20th century composers of instrumental music, alongside George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Charles Ives." - Mark Azzarra, Waterbury (Connecticut) Republican

Swedish Parents
Leroy Anderson was born on June 29, 1908 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 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, came from near Kristianstad in the province of Skåne. He worked as a postal clerk at the Central Square post office and played the mandolin. His mother, Anna Margareta Anderson, came from Stockholm. She was an organist at the Swedish Church in Cambridge. They moved to 12 Chatham Street when Leroy was one year old. As one writer has said, “that suburb of Boston would continue to be the center of Anderson’s world for the next three decades.”

Leroy said that he received all his education on one street - Broadway, Cambridge. He attended Harvard Grammar School, at the corner of Harvard Street and Broadway, and Cambridge High and Latin School (now Rindge High and Latin School). In 1919 he began piano and music studies at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1925 he composed, orchestrated and conducted the Cambridge High and Latin School orchestra in the class song for his graduation. He was in high school when his father bought him a trombone so that he could play in the front row of the Harvard Band where he had been accepted as an underclassman.

1926-1930 Harvard Years
At Harvard Leroy studied musical harmony with Walter Spalding, counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, canon and fugue with William C. Heilman, and orchestration with Edward B. Hill and Walter Piston. Leroy received a B.A. magna cum laude in 1929 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned an M.A. with a major in music in 1930. In graduate school, he studied composition with Walter Piston and Georges Enesco; organ with Henry Gideon and double bass with Gaston Dufresne of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He continued his studies at Harvard through the early 1930’s working toward a PhD in German and Scandinavian languages, while working as a music tutor at Radcliffe College. 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. This turned out to be a pivotal decision for him.

1931-1939 Boston Pops arranger
As a graduate student Leroy became Director of the Harvard 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. In 1938 the Pops performed his first composition, Jazz Pizzicato. It was an immediate hit. Fiedler encouraged him to write original compositions for the orchestra. Leroy wrote Jazz Legato in 1939. This was followed by a succession of his now famous delightful miniatures. Fiedler and the Pops were the first to perform and record many of these compositions. During these years Leroy also performed along with his brother Russ in various popular dance orchestras. They also played on cruise ships of the Norwegian Line crossing between New York and Scandinavia.

1946-1952 International Success
The Andersons spent the summer of 1946 at Painter Hill in Woodbury, Connecticut. It was here that he composed Sleigh Ride during a heat wave. Two years later the Andersons settled in Woodbury permanently. Sons Rolf and Kurt were born in the early 1950’s. The Andersons moved into their new home at Grassy Hill in Woodbury in 1953. During these years Anderson wrote many of his well-loved compositions, among them Blue Tango, The Typewriter, Serenata, Belle of the Ball, Bugler’s Holiday and Forgotten Dreams.

Fiedler continued to premier Leroy’s works including Sleigh Ride, Fiddle–Faddle and Trumpeter’s Lullaby, until 1950. After that Leroy conducted the premieres of his works when he recorded them for Decca Records. Among these pieces were Belle of the Ball, Blue Tango, Bugler’s Holiday, Forgotten Dreams, Horse and Buggy, Plink, Plank, Plunk!, Serenata, The Typewriter and Waltzing Cat. It was his own recording of Blue Tango that made #1 on the Hit Parade of 1952. The popularity of Leroy Anderson's music was rapidly spreading around the world. By 1952 Leroy had established himself as the pre-eminent American composer of light concert music.

1953-1959 Piano Concerto and Musical Theater
Though Leroy primarily utilized the medium of “orchestral miniature”, he also experimented with the longer form in his most ambitious work - Concerto in C for Piano and Orchestra. It received its premiere in 1954 with Anderson as conductor and Eugene List as soloist. After mixed reviews he withdrew the composition with intentions to revise it. He later remarked that he thought the composition had great merit but that it could be slightly improved. Although he never got around to making the intended changes, the Anderson family released the work posthumously (unrevised) in 1988. The Concerto in C is now performed many times around the world each year. He also tried his hand at musical theater. He wrote Goldilocks, his only musical, with Walter and Jean Kerr. It opened October 11, 1958 in New York City. While the story was criticized as being weak, critics praised Anderson's score. His Shall I Take My Heart from Goldilocks is considered by some as one of the most beautiful ballads ever written for American musical theater.

1970-1975 Recognition
Leroy returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to conduct the orchestra at Cambridge Rindge High and Latin School in 1973. In the following year the Boston Pops paid tribute to him in a televised concert that was broadcast nationwide. Leroy appeared on the program and guest-conducted the orchestra. It was, as he said to his wife Eleanor, "the most special evening of my life." Anderson continued to compose and to conduct his music throughout North America until his death in 1975.

1976-2006 Honors and Tributes
The Woodbury Lions Club built a bandstand on Woodbury’s North Green in 1986, dedicated it to Leroy Anderson and gave it to the town of Woodbury. Leroy was elected posthumously to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988.

In 1995 Harvard University named its new band quarters the Anderson Band Center in honor of Leroy Anderson. Cambridge, Massachusetts Mayor Michael Sullivan and the Cambridge City Council dedicated the corner of Chatham and Crawford Streets as Leroy Anderson Square on May 31, 2003. Leroy Anderson’s grave is in Woodbury’s New North Cemetery. Leroy Anderson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 at 1620 Vine Street for his contribution to the recording industry.

The Legacy of Leroy Anderson
The music of Leroy Anderson is firmly entrenched in American popular culture and is enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world. His music continues to be extensively recorded and performed by a wide range of musicians. Among them are symphony orchestras, concert and marching bands, classical and jazz ensembles, vocalists of many styles, virtuosi of almost every instrument as well as music students of all ages.

Anderson's music is frequently used to entertain visiting dignitaries at the White House as well as to greet U.S. Presidents when visiting foreign countries. Its use by radio and television as background music for commercials and theme music for many programs ensures Anderson's music remains familiar with each new generation. More than 50 years after Anderson wrote many of his compositions, in the words of John Williams, composer and laureate conductor of the Boston Pops - "Anderson's music remains as young and fresh as the very day on which it was composed."

Almost 30 years after Leroy Anderson's death, his music has taken on a timeless quality. "It's hard to imagine that someone actually wrote Sleigh Ride," remarked one listener. "It's as though it came from the ether. Sleigh Ride is one of those pieces of music that seems as though it has always been around; just another wonderful part of everyday life." It is safe to say that somewhere in the world someone is either performing or listening to Leroy Anderson's music every moment of every day.

Anderson sensed during his later years that the music he wrote had achieved an identity and a popularity that surpassed his own fame as the composer. At the time he was probably right. In recent years however, the awareness of Leroy Anderson has increased dramatically. This is due in part to new recordings of his music, re-releases of Anderson's original recordings on compact disc, numerous concerts of his works, a PBS video about him broadcast to millions each year since 1999, a book about the composer, and to this website. His widow, Eleanor Anderson, who still lives in the Woodbury, Connecticut home that the couple built in 1952, deserves much of the credit for the increased interest in her husband's music since his death in 1975. Were it not for Eleanor Anderson, there would never have been a video or a book or even this website about the composer. Her lasting commitment to her late husband has made all the difference and has inspired her children and grandchildren to follow her example in honoring Leroy Anderson's life. Few composers of instrumental music obtain the sort of notoriety that Anderson achieved. Even fewer catch a glimpse of their musical legacy in their lifetimes. Leroy Anderson was one of the few. His legacy continues.