January 27, 2009
Inaguration Quartet
There is some controversy over the internationally recognized quartet that played at President Obama’s Inauguration.
This quartet consisted of a racially diverse group of outstanding musicians who played a piece by American composer, Aaron Copeland, which was specially arranged for the inaugural performance by (one of my favorite composers for movies) John Williams.
Everything about the group — from the performers, their instruments, the mix of instruments, the piece chosen, and the man who arranged the piece for this particular quartet for this particular event — could not have been more representative of our great country, The United States of America. In fact, the entire time they were playing, aside from listening to the beautiful music they were making, Portland Firefly was amazed by the amount of talent assembled in such a small group, yet one that in it’s entirety (including composer & arranger) could not have better represented the wonderful melting pot that characterizes Our United Sates of America.
The controversy revolves around the fact that the quartet pre-recorded ( at a dress rehearsal the day before) the music played over the speakers during the actual event while playing along with the recording. Only those sitting very nearby could hear the actual quartet playing at the inauguration.
I am not a music aficionado — I do not read music and only play one very simple instrument – but it is a reed instrument. And I know that reed and string instruments are easily affected by the temperature, especially by bitter cold temps. As you will recall, it was bitterly cold in Washington DC on Tuesday morning, January 20, 2009. And so, since the performance was so important and the performers wanted everything to go as perfect as possible, it was decided that due to the cold, the recorded performance of the day before would be played over the loud speakers.
Portland Firefly has no problem with this decision. There was no attempt to deceive (as proven by MilliVanilli years earlier). The instruments are priceless and the conditions were far from ideal — in fact they were extreme and I wondered while they were playing how they kept their strings from breaking and how they kept their instruments tuned. Now I know that they didn’t have to worry about those things, but could present the performance for us to enjoy. It touched me to see the diversity in this small group of unparalleled musicians and was one of the highlights of the Inauguration for me.
