The Al Welsh Orchestra filled the Perry Performing Arts Center Sunday with their big-band sounds for an appreciative audience of about 75.
Drawing on their library of more than 700 works, the orchestra played an eclectic mixture of songs, moving seamlessly from waltzes to Dixieland to country to cha cha. Their big-band sound features many of the most famous dance tunes of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, with works by artists such as Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Woody Hermann and Benny Goodman.
Since the mid-1950s, the Al Welsh Orchestra has been a regular fixture at the Lake Robbins Ballroom near Perry and other venues around Iowa, playing dance halls, town celebrations, wedding receptions, birthday and anniversary parties, dedications and many other events.
The next concert in the Perry Fine Arts series will be Saturday, Nov. 3 at 4 p.m. at the First Methodist Church in Perry, when the annual William Bell Memorial Tuba and Euphonium Day is celebrated.
