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The
Benvenuti Orchestra Collection is a vast library of vintage light music.
It comprises as many as 20,000 orchestral sets, dance band arrangements,
piano trio's, chamber music, piano solos, instrumental solos, and songs.
In
1974 the Palm Court Orchestra acquired the library of the Benvenuti family
of Brisbane. The Benvenutis had collected an estimated 20,000 titles from
approximately 1860 to 1940 and hired their music out all over Queensland
to picture theatre orchestras, local orchestras and to Brisbane's ABC Symphony
Orchestra.
It
comprises published orchestrations, mainly English, American, including
ragtime, waltzes foxtrots, and other dance styles. Salon pieces and cinema
incidentals, used by cinema orchestras to accompany silent films. It also
contains a number of orchestrations of Australian popular songs..
In
ensuing years the Benvenuti Orchestral Collection has been added to and
now includes an significant collection of dance band arrangements from
1940 to 1960 and of light orchestral music of the 1940s and 1950s.
The
music in this collection is available for hire. Advice is
available for those planning special events and programmes are available
for Viennese balls, Roaring Twenties nights, Tea Dances or Tango Teas,
etc. |