THE COMPOSITION
This symphony is comprised of five movements based upon selected speeches by John F. Kennedy.

0:00 Let the word go forth…
6:03 We Choose to go to the moon…
9:59 This nation is opposed to war.
13:49 What kind of peace do I mean?
18:02 I look forward to an America…

Just as in a musical composition, John F. Kennedy used several themes in his speeches. This piece focuses on two of those themes, the first being hope. JFK frequently spoke about the future and how people had the power to make the world a better place. He consistently repeated a resounding message that the future would be brighter as long as we reached for it. An example of this can be seen in his inaugural address where he states: "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."

The second theme focused on in this symphony is peace. In many of his speeches, JFK spoke about peace as a measure of showing people that whatever the task is, it will help accomplish peace.

Let the first movement of this symphony transport you to the Capitol building on January 20, 1961 as John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address. As each movement progresses, journey through time until the final, fifth movement leaves us on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Boston, Massachusetts at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Imagine you are standing at the Capitol in the present day. You hear President Kennedy's inaugural address almost as if the past is coming to life. Suddenly you find yourself standing at the capitol on January 20th, 1961. For the remainder of the composition, the listener should feel transported to where and when the speech was given as if they were there in the moment, with JFK, as he delivers his now iconic address.

At the very end of the work, it should feel as if our memory is fading away and we find ourselves standing on the shores of the Atlantic in Boston, Massachusetts present day. When he was growing up, Kennedy would sail his sailboat the Victura. Before becoming president, JFK was an officer in the United States Navy and became a war hero after rescuing his crew in the aftermath of his ship being sunk by a Japanese ship in World War Two. His love of the ocean is summed up in a statement he delivered on September 14, 1962 at the Americas Cup Dinner in Newport, Rhode Island: “I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because, in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came." The symphony, as JFK’s life, remains unresolved, leaving the listener with the feeling that much more is still to be done.