The Moonlight Serenade Orchestra

About Us:

The Moonlight Serenade Orchestra has been performing great big band music since 2001!

Come on out and join us for a nostalgic trip back to WW II and enjoy a re-creation of an authentic USO Canteen Show and Dance. If you're a WWII veteran, perhaps you'll look back to these USO dances fondly as some of the better memories of your war experience. Or, if you've seen great war movies like Pearl Harbor, Memphis Belle, 1941 or The Glenn Miller Story, you saw how the USO would provide entertainment for the troops and fliers by sponsoring dances featuring the leading dance bands and singers of the time. In order to accommodate the large crowds and provide shelter, the dances were often held inside the same hangars where aircraft were maintained, local auditoriums, hotel ballrooms or nightclubs.

In an otherwise dangerous and stressful world, these dances offered a rare opportunity to relax, have fun, unwind and forget about the war for a few brief hours. The Canteen Dances and other USO entertainment programs were such a successful initiative for morale, they became legendary for their role in winning the war.

The Moonlight Serenade Orchestra commemorates this heritage by re-creating the sights and sounds of these great times. We'll have a swinging 17-piece dance band dressed in authentic WWII US Army Air Corps uniforms, playing all the hits reminiscent of the great bands like Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. We'll also feature vocalists dressed in 40's era attire, singing the hits of Frank Sinatra, Tex Beneke, The Andrews Sisters and many other celebrities of the era. You'll hear favorites like "In The Mood, Little Brown Jug, Moonlight Serenade, American Patrol, Sing Sing Sing and Bugle Boy From Company B."