Music & Comedy, Theatre & Performing Arts
Memory & Motion November 8, 2026
Northshore Concert Band opens its 2026/27 season with Memory & Motion, a powerful concert exploring remembrance, renewal, spiritual conviction, and the enduring human drive toward freedom. Led by conductor Mallory Thompson, the concert brings together works by Juan Pablo Contreras, Eric Ewazen, Margaret Bonds, and Paul Hindemith in a program that looks to the past while moving decisively toward what comes next.
Memory & Motion features three NCB premieres:
- Juan Pablo Contreras’ La Silla and Margaret Bonds’ Spiritual Suite make their ensemble debut, marking the first time the Northshore Concert Band has performed these specific pieces or any music by their composers.
- Eric Ewazen’s A Hymn for the Lost and the Living will also be receiving its first-ever NCB performance.
The concert opens with Juan Pablo Contreras’ thrilling La Silla. Drawing on his Mexican heritage, this high-energy work is propelled by nimble fanfares and broad lyricism with an irrepressible rhythmic drive. Its powerful sense of forward motion perfectly sets the stage for a program in which music becomes both a vessel for memory and a source of renewal.
Born in Chicago, Margaret Bonds (1913–1972) was a trailblazing American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher who broke major racial barriers in classical music. Her Spiritual Suite, drawing on three spirituals, places spiritual conviction at the heart of the program. The work moves from desolation toward hope, crossing the boundary between the living and the dead and driving through troubled waters toward deliverance.
Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Eric Ewazen’s A Hymn for the Lost and the Living offers a deeply personal reflection on tragedy and remembrance. Drawing on Ewazen’s firsthand memories, the work serves as both an elegy for those who died and a tribute to the strangers brought together in grief.
The program culminates with Paul Hindemith’s monumental Symphony in B-flat, celebrating its 75th anniversary. A cornerstone of the wind-band repertoire, the symphony closes the concert with taut counterpoint, chittering woodwinds, thunderous brass and percussion, and a calamitous final cadence.
Throughout the season, the Northshore Concert Band invites audiences to experience music not just as a historical reflection, but as a living force that transforms our understanding of loss, community, conviction, and possibility. Memory & Motion marks the beginning of that extraordinary journey.
PROGRAM
Juan Pablo Contreras** — La Silla*
Eric Ewazen — A Hymn for the Lost and the Living*
Margaret Bonds** — Spiritual Suite*
Paul Hindemith — Symphony in B-flat
*These works will receive their first NCB performance
**These composers will be performed by NCB for the first time
Tickets are priced at $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, and $10 for students/children. All seats are general admission. Group discounts are available for parties of 10 or more. Please visit northshoreband.org to purchase tickets online through Eventbrite.
Memory & Motion
November 8, 2026 | 3:00 p.m.
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
