Comments on: Not-Quite Live Blogging the Inauguration

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:02:32 +0000

Yeah, but brass is totally different from strings. Strings in extreme weather not only pop, but can seriously damage an instrument. Ma said he seriously considered playing one of the new carbon bodied cellos, which are much stronger than veneered wood and hold up better, but they look funky (blue and stuff) and he didn’t want to take away from the occasion by people going, what the heck is that anyway? He and Perlman did in the end use modern instruments, and not their cherished Stradavarii.

By: Mike Murrell

Mike Murrell — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:55:03 +0000

Excerpted from the NYT:

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

“Truly, weather just made it impossible,” Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said on Thursday.

The Marine Band and choruses, which performed throughout the ceremony, did not use a recording, she said.

Ooh-rah

By: blg

blg — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:12:39 +0000

Overcoat – a real spin thing. Look back at Inaugurations throughout the years. Someone told Presidents-elect that they look more robust without the overcoat. Also, you may not remember the brou-ha-ha when JFK walked to his Inauguration without a hat. Hatmakers the world over predicted their own demise, which was pretty accurate.