Whether you loved or hated the classical music played at US President Barack Obama’s inauguration, unless you were sitting within earshot of the celebrated quartet, what you heard was a recording made two days earlier.
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.
“It would have been a disaster if we had done it any other way,” Perlman told the New York Times, which first reported that the music was taped on its Web site Thursday. “This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.”
The Marine Band, the youth choruses and the Navy Band Sea Chanters performed live, Florman said, although Aretha Franklin was accompanied by taped music and voices.
Florman said all the acts “laid down tape” before Tuesday’s inauguration. When they did their sound checks on Monday, all but the quartet made the decision to have their live performances broadcast.
Temperatures hovered around minus 1ºC for the ceremony on the Capitol steps, too cold for McGill’s clarinet, Ma’s cello or Perlman’s violin to offer true pitch.
But the cold played havoc with the piano, which can’t hold tune below 13ºC for more than two hours, Florman said. The group played at 11:43am and guests seated near them could hear them as well as the tape made two days earlier.
Guests seated farther away, the crowds that thronged the National Mall, and the millions who watched around the world heard the taped version of Williams’ piece.
“No one’s trying to fool anybody. This isn’t Milli Vanilli,” Florman insisted, referring to the late 1980s group stripped of a Grammy for lip-syncing. “They had to perform in such cold weather, the instruments couldn’t possibly be in tune. They were able to play in sync with the tape. It’s not unusual,” she said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS