Empire Theatre Orchestra

In the early 1900’s, before the day of radio or television, folks visited the local opera house or vaudeville theater to be entertained.  Each theater had its own “house orchestra” which would provide background music for silent movies and other musical entertainment for concerts and variety shows.  Typical music performed by these orchestras included marches, rags, and overtures, and these orchestras also accompanied early Broadway musicals (many of which are unknown today).  The Empire Theatre Orchestra has secured hundreds of these actual orchestra arrangements from the first decade of the 1900’s (many of them came from Chicago’s Majestic Theater), and we are ready to transport you back more than a hundred years.  These old arrangements SPARKLE and are very entertaining!