“The Eyes of The World: From D-Day To VE Day” to Air Across Public Television Stations Nationwide and Streaming on PBS.org and the PBS App as Special Veterans Day Event, Beginning November 1
Host Katie Couric, Historian John Monsky, Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart and Broadway Stars Lead a Symphonic and Visual Journey Through World War II’s Final Months in Europe, Featuring Personal Accounts from Ernest Hemingway, Robert Capa, J.D. Salinger, and Lee Miller, Filmed with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall.
New York, NY – American History Unbound and American Public Television (APT) announced today The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day, performed with the Boston Pops, will begin airing on public television stations nationwide and streaming on PBS.org and the PBS app beginning Friday November 1, 2024. This symphonic and visual journey, capturing the dramatic final months of World War II in Europe, commemorates Veterans Day and the 80th anniversary of D-Day this year.
The performance was recorded on two sold-out nights at Boston Symphony Hall in May 2024.
In The Eyes of the World hosted by award-winning journalist and best-selling author Katie Couric, historian and writer John Monsky weaves together music, meticulously researched history and rare film and photographs from the National Archives. The words and images of Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Vogue-model-turned-photojournalist Lee Miller, daredevil war photographer Robert Capa and the heroic 761st Tank Battalion bring Monsky’s powerful narrative to life. Flags that were carried onto the beaches and paved the way to victory further illuminate these stories often lost to history.
The Boston Pops’ Keith Lockhart conducts the famed orchestra, featuring top Broadway vocalists Shereen Ahmed (My Fair Lady), Kate Rockwell (Mean Girls), Nicholas Rodriguez (Company) and Daniel Yearwood (Hamilton, Sweeney Todd). Lockhart leads the Boston Pops in a stirring mix of music that captures the essence of the times, featuring compositions from Glenn Miller, Richard Rodgers, Edith Piaf, Frank Loesser and more.
In the production, Monsky guides the audience through the Battle of the Hedgerows, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, the horrors of the Hürtgen Forest, Germany’s spiderweb of concentration camps and Munich, through the letters, journal entries and photographs of his witnesses. Along the way, as their journeys unfold in breathtaking fashion, they meet in the most unlikely of places and cross paths with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Pablo Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and Hemingway’s estranged wife, trailblazing war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day, distributed to public television stations by APT, is produced by American History Unbound Inc., with the Boston Pops and Bright Blue Media Group. For more information: www.americanhistoryunbound.com
ABOUT AMERICAN PUBLIC TELEVISION (APT)
APT is the leading syndicator of high-quality, top-rated programming to the nation’s public television stations. Founded in 1961, APT distributes 250 new program titles per year and more than one-third of the top 100 highest-rated public television titles in the U.S. APT’s diverse catalog includes prominent documentaries, performances, dramas, how-to programs, classic movies, children’s series and news and current affairs programs. APT also licenses programs internationally through its APT Worldwide service and distributes Create®TV — featuring the best of public television's lifestyle programming — and WORLD™, public television’s premier news, science and documentary channel. More information at: www.APTonline.org
ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY UNBOUND INC.
The American History Unbound series combines live music, performed by leading orchestras and celebrated Broadway actors, lecture, photographs and film from the National Archives, historic American flags, and material culture to explore watershed moments in American history.
These symphonic and visual journeys through history are commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Presents series. Created and narrated by historian John Monsky, programs to date have explored the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, D-Day, and World War I. These works have been presented to sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center Opera House, the New-York Historical Society, Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, Yale University, New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Stock Exchange.
American History Unbound Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization.
ABOUT THE BOSTON POPS
For more than 135 years, the Boston Pops has entertained audiences in Boston and beyond. It all began in 1885, thanks to the vision of Civil War veteran Henry Lee Higginson, who four years earlier, in 1881, had founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1886, the Pops performed for the first time in its new home, Symphony Hall.
In 1930 Arthur Fiedler became the first American-born musician to lead the orchestra. In Fiedler’s nearly 50-year tenure as Pops Conductor (1930-1979), he established the Boston Pops as a national icon. When John Williams (1980-1993) succeeded Arthur Fiedler, he was the most highly acclaimed composer in Hollywood, and today, he is the most-nominated living person in Academy history.
Keith Lockhart was named conductor in 1995 and has since created programs that reach out to a broader and younger audience by presenting artists from virtually every corner of the entertainment world, all the while maintaining the Pops' core appeal.
Press Contacts:
Rick Miramontez / Evie Freeman
rick(at)omdkc.com / evie(at)omdkc.com
212 695 7400
American Public Television:
Olivia Wong
Olivia_Wong(at)APTonline.org
www.aptonline.org
www.omdkc.com
www.instagram.com/omdkc/
www.facebook.com/omdkc
www.x.com/omdkc