Win tickets to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra

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STRIKE up the big band, the Glenn Miller Orchestra is set to swing into Christchurch next month with a concert at the town’s Regent Centre.

The musical programme will take the audience back to the swinging 1930s and ’40s when Glenn Miller packed US dance halls performing a string of hits including Moonlight Serenade and Chattanooga Choo Choo.

The band’s original arrangements of classic wartime chart-toppers will include American Patrol, Little Brown Jug, Tuxedo Junction and, of course, the iconic In the Mood.

Songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Louis Armstrong are all featured in the show, which also pays tribute to other big band leaders of the era like Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman.

The current UK-based Glenn Miller Orchestra was put together in 1988 by veteran musical entertainer Ray McVay, in conjunction with Glenn Miller Productions in New York.

Ray, former musical director of the BBC’s original Come Dancing series, approached the offices of the Glenn Miller estate seeking an arrangement to operate a Glenn Miller act in the UK.

Since then, over the last quarter of a century, his orchestra has toured Britain, around Europe, in Asia and South America, performing Glenn Miller’s marvellous music.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra, led by Ray will be at Christchurch Regent Centre on Sunday 3rd November at 3pm. Tickets are £23 but we’ve teamed up with the Regent Centre to give one lucky reader the chance to win a pair of tickets by answering the question in this week’s leisure competition – inside today's A&T, in shops now.

It was the Second World War that brought the Glenn Miller and his magic to UK. While British men were bemoaning the influx of GIs – “overpaid, oversexed and over here” – they acknowledged that at least the Americans brought some great music with them.

In 1944, the band’s musical style and showmanship immediately endeared them to UK audiences. They played around 80 concerts and performed some 40 radio broadcasts between July and December. This year marks the 75th anniversary of that momentous occasion.

On December 15, 1944, Glenn boarded a single-engine UC-64 Norseman aircraft to travel to Paris for a Christmas broadcast, but the plane didn’t reach France and was never found.

As far as UK music-lovers were concerned, a special relationship had been forged between them and Glenn Miller and his music – a bond that continues to this day.

For more information and tickets visit www.regentcentre.co.uk or contact the box office on 01202 499199.