Composer John Adams had his opera, Nixon in China. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky now has his “LBJ Goes to Vietnam and Mississippi.” His new work, August 4, 1964, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony, concerns the day that the bodies of three murdered civil rights/voter registration workers were finally found in Mississippi, the same day that the second attack supposedly occurred by North Vietnamese torpedo boats against U. S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Johnson would use the first incident to help get his landmark civil rights legislation passed, the second to get the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed, which led us far deeper into a war in Vietnam. The Dallas Symphony is getting national attention for presenting the world premiere of the new oratorio for orchestra, chorus and soloists, Sept. 18-21 at the Meyerson.