Who knew?

I read an interesting article this morning in the New York Times.

It turns out one of my favorite musical moments from the inauguration of President Barack Obama was more of a Milli Vanilli moment. Not lip-syncing, but close enough.

Yep, the Times reports that beautiful performance of "Air and Simple Gifts" by cellist,
Yo-Yo Ma, violinist, Itzhak Perlman, along with piano and clarinet, had been recorded days prior. What millions on the National Mall and watching at home on tv heard, was the quartet matching note for note what was being played on loud speakers.

As I watched, I thought all of the performers played with such passion it could only be real, meaning live. But apparently it was just too cold to take the chance of a broken piano string, or a cracked violin, or cello. And the performance would undoubtedly have ended on a 'sour note' if the cold would have lead to some wacky out-of-key moments.

So, when you consider all of the weather factors, it all seems to make sense.

Maybe they should have taped the oath of office as well.

Simple Gifts is a simple yet powerful Shaker hymn, or work song. The version of the popular song played at the inauguration was arranged by John Williamson.

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