The sound of steel drums will fill Krehbiel Auditorium as student and community musicians finish out the semester with a musical bang, tonight at 7 p.m.

The concert is free and open to the public, with a freewill offering taken to help support care and maintenance of the steel pans.

The mostly community-member band Steel Paradise will play first, followed by the Bethel College Steel Drum Band. Brad Shores directs both groups.

Steel Paradise’s set list starts with two folk songs, “Everybody Loves a Saturday Night” (Nigeria) and “Guantanamera” (Cuba).

Other numbers are “Have you thanked the Lord” (LaMotta), “Jump in the Line” (Kitchener), “Mardi Gras Mambo” (Adams and Welsch), “Under the Mango Tree” (Norman) and “Baja” (Shores).

The Bethel College Steel Drum Band will play several Shores originals “Blue Samba,” “Island Breakdown,” Urban Spice” and “Spin Cycle.”

The rest of their set list is “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (Presley), “3 Little Birds” (Marley), “Stand By Me” (King) and the popular Jamaican folk song “Yellowbird.”

Steel Paradise is Denise Woelk, Elizabeth Tran, Cindy Combs, Krista Loomis and Stefanie Jones Knopp on leads; Erica Nance on double 2nds; Bethel senior Antonino Mangiapane, Michelle Sheriff and Brad Shores on double guitars; Shirley Dietzel on bass; and Lindy Reynolds on drum set.

Bethel College Steel Drum Band is Caleb Cushman, senior from Keystone Heights, Fla., Antonino Mangiapane, senior from Solingen, Germany, Lauren Terry, first-year from Colleyville, Texas, Hayden Wallace, first-year from Moundridge, and Cindy Combs on leads; Miki Harkins, senior from Wichita, and Trent Reyes, sophomore from East Bernard, Texas, on double 2nds; Ernest Ferrier, sophomore from Humble, Texas, and James Tyrell, first-year from Newton, on double guitars; Brenden Sanders, sophomore from Plano, Texas, on 6 bass; and Nicole Tran, junior from Newton, on 3 bass. 

Other music events on campus to close out the semester are Jazz on the Green on Weds., May 4, 8 p.m., with Memorial Hall as a rain venue; the small a cappella ensembles Woven (women) and Open Road (men), Sun., May 8, 7 p.m. in Memorial Hall; and a choral concert featuring the Bethel College Concert Choir and their 2022 Europe tour repertoire, Sat., May 14, 4 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Known for academic excellence, Bethel ranks at #15 in the Washington Monthly list of “Best Bachelor’s Colleges” and #31 in U.S. News & World Report, Best Regional Colleges Midwest, both for 2021-22. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university selected for the American Association of College & Universities’ 2021 Institute on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, and has been named a TRHT Campus Center. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu