Stirring ‘Government Issue‘ Music Event to salute 70th anniversary of D-Day

A unique and stirring musical anthology of World War II, combined with moving narratives, will be performed in west suburban Wheaton 8 p.m. Saturday, June 7.

Titled “Government Issue Oratoria,” it is a 10-part presentation focusing on heroic soldiers and pivotal wartime events, and the public is invited to experience both its music and the powerful memories it evokes.

A tribute to the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the event features a full orchestra, chorus, and narrators. It will take place at the Edman Memorial Chapel of Wheaton College, 401 E. Franklin Street. Historic photographs and stirring visual images projected during the program will add tremendous emotional impact to this dramatic salute to the U.S. and those who defended it during one of the most life-altering global military conflicts of our time.

“Government Issue Oratoria” is the creation of Dr. Michael James Karasis of Woodstock. He is both a surgeon and a talented musician whose many compositions over the past 25 years include orchestral, vocal, and chamber works. He will play violin with the Illinois Festival Orchestra and Elgin Choral Union for the “G.I. Oratoria” program under the direction of Maestro Brian Groner, who is the music director/conductor of the Fox Valley Symphony and the Harper College Symphony Orchestra, as well as the conductor of String Orchestra at Northeastern Illinois University.

Performing vocals for the “G.I. Oratoria” is the Elgin Choral Union, an adult choir of 110 volunteers and section leaders originally formed in 1947 and now in residence at Elgin Community College.

Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of President Harry S. Truman, will serve as the program’s principal narrator, and Wesley Truman Daniel, Truman’s great-grandson, will participate as another reader.

The event will open with the DuPage Honor Guard presenting the colors accompanied by the National Anthem. The ten-part Oratoria begins with the stirring musical “Overture to D-Day.” Following segments include “Breadline,” which focuses on the Great Depression preceding the war, and “The Sleeping Giant,” which recalls the awakening of America after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor that prompted the U.S. to engage in the global conflict.

The “Home Front” segment is devoted to America’s preparation for battle and support of the war effort at home. “Fanfare to Corregidor” salutes the war effort in the South Pacific, and “Incident on the Rhine” refers to an incident among soldiers in the European Theater.

A segment entitled “Ziggy’s Girl” is a poignant story about a G.I. war romance. Treblinka’s Child” is inspired by the account of a G.I. who was among the liberators of “that Nazi German concentration camp in Occupied Poland.”

The “G.I. Prayer” segment serves as a eulogy to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Trojan Horse” recalls the story of Homer’s Iliad and commemorates the flight of the Enola Gay—the plane that released the atomic bombs over Japan. “Times Square in 1945” celebrates the end of the war, and “Elegy” commemorates those who have fallen since World War II.

Concluding the concert, Soprano Melissa Pagano-Arndt of the Elgin Choral Union, who has performed with the Elgin Symphony, will sing “God Bless America.”

Dr. Karasis said that the Edman Memorial Chapel accommodates an audience of over two thousand. He is hoping that every seat will be filled for this remarkable musical tribute, which he describes as a salute to a heroic generation of Americans.

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