More White House music
I missed news of this earlier in November. What I want to know is: When are the Obama girls are going to start music lessons?
Wednesday was classical music day at the White House. The festivities and performances were sponsored by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, created by executive order in 1982. The first lady serves as honorary chairwoman of the committee, and Michelle Obama, fully embracing that function, has created a White House Music Series.
Joshua Bell was on hand. How about this for being self-effacing:
Mr. Bell, who had worked with a group of young violinists in the morning, gave them an inadvertent and useful lesson that any performer, no matter how accomplished, can get into a jam. Playing a lyrical Cantabile by Paganini for violin and guitar with Ms. Isbin, he mistakenly jumped ahead near the end of the piece, then stopped. “I’ve taken a wrong turn,” he said. He had skipped a couple of phrases, he explained. So he and Ms. Isbin simply ended the piece a little early.
Mr. Bell’s self-effacing demeanor seemed to delight his young listeners as much as his brilliant account of a splashy piece by Vieuxtemps, a virtuosic fantasy on “Yankee Doodle.”
What we need now is a White House Sampler from all the music series held so far (and the Gershwin Prize that went to Stevie Wonder).
