If it wasn’t for the fact that the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and Steinway pianos didn’t exist yet, Una Odisseamight have been performed four hundred years ago, on a market square somewhere around the Mediterranean. Its dual inspirations are Ithaca, a poem by the Greek poet Cavafy, and Homer’s Odyssey itself. The journey (to Ithaca) and Ulysses’ wanderings are metaphors for the search for our true selves. The programme doesn’t focus on the figure of Ulysses so much as on all the themes that Homer weaves together in the Odyssey: life as a perilous journey that circumnavigates the cliffs of nostalgia, exile, jealousy, loyalty and love. Una Odisseawas written by Italian tenor Marco Beasley and composer/harpsichordist Guido Morini at the invitation of the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble. Alfio Antico, a Sicilian percussionist and traditional singer, contributed the song Nessuno as well as the primordial sound of his frame drum, which is the heartbeat of the programme.