Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra is an ensemble fashioned after the dance bands of the Roaring Twenties. Their size ranges from the full 11-piece orchestra to smaller incarnations, depending on the engagement. They play the Hot-and-Sweet music of that era at nightclubs, weddings, balls, galas, and miscellaneous venues that are home to savoring and dancing to fine music.

The Dreamland Orchestra is something rare, as is the experience you have at one of their performances. First of all, the orchestra is authentic. All of the music it plays has been transcribed note by note by Arenella from period recordings. Their instruments, clothing, and equipment — music stands, microphones, megaphones — are true to the original. They are young dapper dandies, as were the marvelous bands of the Jazz Age. They are based in New York, which with London was the capital of this music. All of this allows them to capture the essence of what these bands, and times, were all about: youth, joy, romance, modernity, and possibility.

These are timeless qualities, just as valid today as ever. The Orchestra is not a museum piece. Ask the punk and heavy metal kids who end up liking the DO more than the bands they come to see at the same nightclub. Indeed, this music was the rock ‘n’ roll or punk of its day: rebellious, reckless, and, in the eyes of the older generations, dangerous. The Dreamland Orchestra’s mission is to mine the forgotten yet vital beauty of the past and bring it into the light of today — to be danced and romanced to by a new generation of flappers and sheiks.

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