Music and Politics: A Lyndon B. Johnson Oratorio on Race and Vietnam
Channel: Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: 2014-01-21

Steven Stucky
Given Foundation Professor of Composition, Department of Music, Cornell University

In 2008 the Dallas Symphony premiered "August 4, 1964," an oratorio by composer Steven Stucky in honor of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The work follows events of that day in the LBJ White House, a pivotal day that both shaped the civil rights movement in American and led to the tragic escalation of the war in Vietnam.  During the morning hours of August 4, 1964, the president received word that American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin were under attack.  That evening he learned that the bodies of civil right's workers James Chaney, Any Goodman and Michael Schwerner, missing for three months had been found.

Steven Stucky, recipient of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Music, plays excerpts from this oratorio and discusses the role of politics in today's classical music.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009
4:00 pm
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum