For me, the best part of the Inaugural ceremonies was the beautiful performance by Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill. The blogosphere was buzzing later in the day about how wonderful the performance was given how cold it was. Now comes this disappointing report from FoxNews:
Whether you loved or hated the classical music played at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, what you heard was a recording made two days earlier unless you were sitting within earshot of the celebrated performers.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriella Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill made the decision a day before Tuesday’s inauguration after a sound check to use a previously recorded audio tape for the broadcast of the ceremonies.
Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said the weather was too cold for the instruments to stay in tune.
“They were very insistent on playing live until it became clear that it would be too cold,” said Florman in a telephone interview Thursday night.
People sitting nearby could hear the musicians play “Air and Simple Gifts”, written for the inauguration by John Williams, but their instruments were not amplified.
So, the oath was a do-over, the music was canned; now if we could just do something about that inane poem!
At least it was them on the recording.
As a musician myself, I understand the challenges of performing live on television. Add freezing temperatures to the normal challenges of live television and we really are asking a lot of these musicians. I have no problem with musicians perform along with a previously recorded performance for television, as long as the recorded performance was actually performed by the musicians you see on screen. This is why the Milli Vanilli flap was so controversial and why it destroyed their career. So, I have no problem with that performance.
Now, the poem? What in the world was that?! Not only was there no rhyme, was there really any reason either? And talk about performances! What was up with those prayers? Rick Warren at least prayed in the name of Jesus, even if it was a little squishy. V. Gene Robinson didn’t pray in the name of ANYBODY (like THAT’S any big shock!) and Joseph Lowry used his “prayer” to lecture us on social justice and basically accuse us white people of still being racist and segregating all of the other races.
But what should I expect? The media have treated Obama like a Messiah figure ever since he came on the national stage. By the way, have you noticed that the media has been doing everything it can to lower expectations? I have to agree with Rush (OH NO! NOT HIM!) that Obama is just too big to fail. I am just afraid that if his policies do succeed, it the economy that is going to fail!