In 2020, Ryan Townsend Strand invited me to join a group of fourteen composers he was asking to create songs using texts drawn from letters written to Jacqueline Kennedy following the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy in 1963. Keys and Pennies is a setting of one of these letters. It was written in 1964 by 14-year-old Diana Tyler. Diana’s heartfelt expression of her community’s grief and her empathy for Mrs. Kennedy’s loss of her husband is deeply moving. When I read her letter, I found myself identifying with her in many ways. We were the same age, both young women in 1964. Both of us were growing up and living in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the time. There were unanticipated touchpoints and I felt compelled to compose her letter into a song to add to the Letters to Jackie songbook.

About Letters to Jackie, Ryan Townsend Strand says:

“When words are important enough to write, they gain the power of history. On November 22, 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while sitting next to his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy. For years to come after this infamous day, letters were written to Jackie, expressing condolences and confusion, the spectrum of grief memorialized in the written word. This project seeks to give voice to those letters, providing community for an audience, and sharing in that collective grief. It is a touchstone for turning inward and experiencing grief through the lens of a national tragedy. Letters to Jackie invites listeners on a communal journey to safely explore grief and spark conversation on the importance of human connection.”

Libby Larsen, 2023