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Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975)
Chicken Reel
Leroy Anderson was born in 1908 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Swedish immigrants. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in music at Harvard, where he played the trombone and was director of the Harvard University Band. He was multi-talented – after graduating in Music he studied German & Scandinavian languages! His clever music arrangements brought him to the attention of Arthur Fiedler, music director of the Boston Pops, who encouraged him to write original compositions for the orchestra.
During World War II, the Army made use of Anderson's fluency in languages. He served as a translator and interpreter in Iceland, and eventually headed the Scandinavian section of Military Intelligence in the Pentagon.
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