The program traces a musical journey past landmarks and along waterways — places of memory, homecoming and faith drawn from Italian, American, Japanese and German traditions. Like landmarks seen along a river, each piece marks a place where people have paused to remember where they came from and to give thanks. The evening will be anchored by two works from opposite sides of the world. 

Shenandoah likely began with French Canadian fur traders paddling the Missouri River and was later carried around the world by sailors as a sea shanty. Folklorists John and Alan Lomax heard in it a call from the homeland “from the land itself, its rivers and its familiar and loved hills.” Frank Ticheli’s setting lets that melody drift like the river itself, its tempo ebbing and flowing as the tune surfaces and recedes. “Ancient Flower,” by Japanese-born composer and pianist Yukiko Nishimura, draws on traditional Japanese music, with its flowing pentatonic melodies, breath-like rhythms and expressive use of silence, known as ma. Born half a world apart, a river song and a flower song seem to share the same feeling of hiraeth — a Welsh word that conveys longing for a home, place or time that no longer exists or one that never existed at all.

Around these harbors, Ennio Morricone’s music from “Cinema Paradiso” — featuring alto saxophone soloist Ben Gilpin — recalls the film’s story of a man who returns to his Sicilian hometown. The man rediscovers the gift his mentor, the village projectionist, left behind — a tender meditation on youth, friendship and the golden glow of memory. “America the Beautiful” offers a reflection on the land as a shared home, while Michael “Praetorius’s Dances” from Terpsichore, a set of lively Renaissance dances by the great Lutheran church composer, and Leroy Anderson’s “Bugler’s Holiday,” featuring a trumpet quartet, add celebration and joy.

The Hope College concert band is under the direction of Dr. Anand Raj Sukumaran, assistant professor of music and director of bands. He teaches secondary instrumental music pedagogy, brass and woodwind methods, folk guitar, and music history. 

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