Norman Leyden

Norman Leyden
Norman Leyden (holding his clarinet case) at a rehearsal in 2012
Born	Norman Fowler Leyden October 17, 1917 Springfield, Massachusetts
Died	July 23, 2014(2014-07-23) (aged 96)
Nationality	American
Occupation	Conductor, composer, arranger, musician
Spouse(s)	Alice Curry Wells

Norman Fowler Leyden (October 17, 1917 – July 23, 2014) was an American conductor, composer, arranger, and clarinetist. He worked in film and television and is perhaps best known as the conductor of the Oregon Symphony Pops orchestra. He co-wrote with Glenn Miller the theme "I Sustain the Wings" in 1943, which was used to introduce the World War II radio series.

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). He married Alice Curry Wells in 1942 in Duval County, Florida.

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.