The W.D. Packard Concert Band came into existence thanks to the generosity of an automaker, so it’s only fitting that the band will celebrate those origins with its 69th anniversary concert.

“Packard Automobiles on the Go” is the theme of Sunday’s concert, which will be conducted by Galen S. Karriker.

“I’m always looking for unique ideas to make it fun for the audience,” said Executive Director Thomas A. Groth, who assembled the program. “I picked tunes that were all related to car travel.”

That will include Charles Sayre’s “The Packard Suite,” which the band commissioned in 2005 to mark its 50th anniversary. It will be narrated by James Garber, who is the band’s pianist and also a minister.

It will be followed by “Car,” a five-movement composition by Marcel Peeters.

“A couple years ago, we did the first movement of that piece,” Groth said. “I asked the audience to imagine they were in a ’32 Packard roadster, and they were in front of the Courthouse, and they were going to drive it around Warren while we were playing, and I told them what they would see.”

For this performance, images of different areas will accompany each movement.

“The first will be pictures of around Warren,” he said. “Then we go up north to Amish country and Ashtabula County, the lake and so forth. Then in the third movement, we’re down in Mahoning County, visiting sites there.

“The fourth movement is the steel mills revisited, driving around and seeing what’s left of those. And then the fifth movement, I’m going to have the audience guess where we are, just guess where the pictures are from, sort of a take off on the old (‘Today Show’ segment) ‘Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?'”

Other selections for the concert will include Patrick Roszell’s “Drive” fanfare, Leroy Anderson’s “Horse and Buggy!,” Alex Finley’s “Traffic Jam!,” Lisa Galvin’s “Excursion: A Ride Along the Erie Canal,” L.P. Laurendeau’s Galop 1896: “Automania” and Henry Fillmore’s “The Klaxon” march.

“The original cars, I guess, they just used hand signals, and it was too distracting for the drivers, so the Klaxon Horn Company made a horn for the cars, and that’s what this was written for,” Groth said. “In fact for the first performance of the “Klaxon,” they had a whole conglomeration of car horns, different pitches, and played it on the horns. They destroyed them after the first performance, because it was so ungodly, so now the horn section now plays that part.”

It also will include a medley of songs called “An American Musical Road Trip.”

“It’s a new piece out where, musically you go from New York to San Francisco with the appropriate tunes,” Groth said.

Packard Music Hall officially opened on Oct. 15, 1955, and both the building and the band that regularly performs there were made possible by a trust established by William Doud Packard in his will. That trust continues to fund the band and makes its free performances possible.

“The band is a unique situation,” Groth said. “I used to talk with (former conductor) Bob Fleming about that quite a bit when he was alive. I don’t know if there’s another situation like that in the country — a band that will last forever. Unless the world is destroyed, it will last forever … There are professional bands, obviously, around the country, but they charge admission. The people of Warren get it for free. Packard set this up for the edification and entertainment of the people of Warren. It’s ours to enjoy forever, both playing and in the audience.”

If you go …

WHAT: W.D. Packard Concert Band 69th anniversary concert with Galen S. Karriker, conductor, and James Garber, narrator

WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Packard Music Hall, 1703 Mahoning Ave NW, Warren

HOW MUCH: Admission is free, and funding is provided by the W.D. Packard trust