Obama musical trio were pre-recorded

ITN News
Friday, January 23, 2009

Some of the musical performances at Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony were pre-recordings, it has emerged.

The temperatures in Washington DC dropped to -1C at the time of the performances on Tuesday, making it too risky for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, clarinettist Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero to be heard live as they would have been out of tune.

The instruments’ pitch would have been impaired so instead what was heard was a recording made two days earlier.

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John Williams’ specially composed Air and Simple Gifts had been taped ahead of the inauguration and during the performance they played live, but their instruments were not amplified. Instead the tape was played over the sound system.

Mr Perlman said: “It would have been a disaster if we had done it any other way. This occasion’s got to be perfect – you can’t have any slip-ups.”

Full story here.

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