Duration: 3.5 minutes
Instrumentation: piano and SATB choir (orchestral instrumentation available under Let the Word Go Forth)
Program Note:
For the National President's Day Choral Festival, Gary R. Schwartzhoff, artistic director and conductor, honoring John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, as commissioned by Music Celebrations International, John Wiscombe, President
II. To the Moon
Let us make some brick and burn them, bricks for stone and slime for mortar. Go, let us build up a mighty city and a tower unto heaven. (Genesis 11:3-4 KJV)
Archimedes told us we could lift the world with levers from the sky. Galileo, dreaming of inertia, said an object could continue onward in its flight. (EW)
Now it is time to take longer strides; time for a great new American enterprise; time for this nation to take a leading role which may hold the key to our future on earth. I believe in achieving this goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. (from JFK Address to Congress, May 25, 1961)
We choose to go to the moon in this decade for knowledge and peace. On this adventure we embark. (from JFK, Address at Rice University, September 12, 1962)