The composer for Man of La Mancha was born Irwin Michnick and studied with the composer Paul Hindemith at the Yale School of Music. Praised by such notables as pianist Artur Rubenstein ("most brilliant composer writing for the musical theatre today"), he wrote everything from jazz to opera. One of his works was included in the Metropolitan Opera's Centennial Celebration.

Multi-talented he was also a director, staging Yul Brynner's farewell tour of The King and I. In 1957, he founded his own company, Music Makers, a radio and television commercial production house. While writing Man of La Mancha, he did not play an instrument and submitted songs, already fully orchestrated on cassette tapes. (Rather than turning the melodies over to Broadway professionals for orchestration as was the usual practice, he used the musicians of his own company who did the orchestration under his direction.) This orchestration calls for a wind band and guitars with only one bowed string instrument.

Never forgetting his alma mater, Leigh and wife underwrote the renovation of Yale's School of Music building, now Abby and Mitch Leigh Hall, and he recently endowed a chair in Jazz there.

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Revised April 2009
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