In the history of a people there are moments and lives too important to be left untouched by artistic illumination. John F. Kennedy once said, “A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

Honoring President Kennedy, Yellow Barn has created a program in which words, seeking to comprehend the complexities of that time, find illumination in the music of Olivier Messiaen and John Cage, and One Red Rose, a new work by Steven Mackey co-commissioned by Yellow Barn with the Nasher Sculpture Center and Carnegie Hall. In remembrance of a day one half-century ago, Yellow Barn's program is premiered in Putney by the Brentano String Quartet, clarinetist Charles Neidich, and pianist Seth Knopp, and then presented in Dallas, with a special performance of One Red Rose at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.