SKU: PR.441410240

UPC: 680160589128. Libretto by Gene Scheer.

August 4, 1964 was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony for the 2008 celebration of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s centennial year. The 75-minute oratorio focuses on two events that came to a head on August 4, 1964, events that defined LBJ’s presidency: the discovery of the bodies of three slain civil rights workers in Mississippi, and the bombing of North Vietnam, which accelerated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. Gene Scheer’s thoroughly-researched libretto includes actual transcripts of White House phone conversations and government documents, as well as letters from the mothers of the slain civil rights workers.