Thursday, October 12th, at 7:00pm in the Sturgis Community Center Theater, as the Sturgis Area Arts Council brings you the world famous Glen Miller Orchestra! Admission for this wonderful event is $25 per person, payable at the door that evening. We accept cash and personal checks only… although there is an ATM in the community center if needed. We will be taking reservations over the phone, but we will not be reserving specific seats. To get your name on the reservation list, please call Marlene at 605-347-1375 or Dedi at 605-490-2984
The Glenn Miller Orchestra is a fully self-contained group consisting of the music director, five saxophone players, four trumpeters, four trombonists, three rhythm musicians (piano, bass and drums), and two vocalists.
The big-band business today requires constant travel with an arduous schedule of one-night stands. The Glenn Miller Orchestra is “on the road” longer and more continuously than any other in the world. It covers over a hundred thousand miles a year, working most every night for 48 weeks out of every 52-nearly 300 playing dates, performing for an “in person” audience that adds up to more than a half million people annually. The orchestra has performed in all 50 United States, as well as throughout Europe, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, Guam, the Philippines, South and Central America.
Glenn Miller and his Orchestra made a big impact right before and during the war. And it had more hit records in one year than anybody in the history of the recording industry. In fact, it’s recording of Chattanooga Choo-Choo earned the first Gold Record ever awarded to a performing artist. Back in the days of the big band era of the forties, any dance band “worth its salt” had a distinctive theme song. It was the musical signature with which they signed on and signed off at their engagements and radio broadcasts. The theme of Glenn Miller and His Orchestra was the beautiful Moonlight Serenade, and it is still the signature tune of the Glenn Miller Orchestra today. Interestingly enough, Glenn Miller originally wrote the music of the song himself as an exercise for a course in arranging. He composed it long before he organized his band, when he was a trombonist and arranger with Ray Noble’s famous band. Today, it is considered a standard in the field of popular music with its popularity as an instrumental continuing undiminished through the years.
