Happy to Be Here: A Musical Celebration of Cape Cod

The CCCB celebrates of 50 years of music-making and our own home-sweet-home with Portraits of Cape Cod.

This unique, modern, and lighthearted suite consists of eight short movements, each evoking a time, a place, a memory, a tradition, or a spirit that is unique to the Cape. The musical portraits are personal, reflecting Michael Donovan’s lifelong connection to the Cape, but concertgoers will connect to the composer’s depictions of familiar Cape landmarks, including the Sagamore Bridge, Four Seas Ice Cream, and The Columns. (And there are pictures too—original watercolors by the composer, reproduced in a beautiful commemorative booklet.)

Alongside Portraits, the CCCB’s birthday program includes an array of musical tributes to the Band’s conductors—only three in 50 years!

To honor founding director Tony Stevens, the Band will play David R. Holsinger’s Havendance, a rousing overture that Tony loved. He purchased it soon after its 1985 release for the group to play. For John Hagon, the CCCB’s conductor from 1995-2020, and the man who morphed into John Philip Sousa every few years for the Band’s Sousa Lives concerts, the CCCB will perform The Untitled March. Sousa’s final work, it was discovered more than 50 years after his death.

And in appreciation for the CCCB’s current conductor, Tom Borning, who has led the ensemble since 2021, the Band will play Mount Everest by Rossano Galante. The composer is a favorite of Tom’s, and the CCCB performed the piece on the first concert that he conducted. There’s plenty more musical fun planned too, including Kool and the Gang’s infectious Celebration (arranged by the Band’s own Tom Borning) and the hilarious Happy Birthday Around the World.