I almost forgot, until an email from the White House press office reminded me: tonight is classical music night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I wrote about it here, and you can watch streaming live here at 7 p.m. (Unfortunately, I will miss it.)
Desiree Rogers, the Social Secretary, blogged about the music series today, and First Lady Michelle Obama presided over a classical music workshop this afternoon. Here’s an excerpt from her remarks:
…nothing mixes old and new quite like classical music. Many of the beautiful concertos and sonatas you’re playing today were written hundreds of years ago, long before CDs and computers and MP3 players were ever invented. The only reason we know what they sound like is because the great composers of history scratched those notes into parchment with quill pens.
But today you can play these same notes on an electric violin. You can write your own variations of these songs online and e-mail them around the world. And you can mix and blend your instruments in ways that Beethoven and Mozart never could have imagined.
That’s what makes classical music timeless, because even though it’s been around for centuries, musicians like all of you are always reinterpreting and replaying it in ways that we’ve never heard before — and that makes it so exciting.
I’m not sure she’s sending the right message about the value of classical music here, but…
The President has made personal remarks about his musical enthusiams at the jazz and country music events; it’ll be interesting to hear what he says tonight.