Four years ago, I was enchanted by the quartet of Air and Simple Gifts performed at Obama's first inauguration. The small kerfuffle about the musicians air-playing to their own prerecorded performance did not bother me (how can one play instruments in such freezing cold weather?). It certainly didn't hurt that I already enjoy the music of Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams, as well as the Shaker hymn on which this piece was arranged.
This year I was taken with the poem (only the fifth inaugural poem in history). I did not know the poet, Richard Blanco (aside from the NPR piece on him I heard earlier this month), but the poem reminded me of Walt Whitman, a poet whose work I've known most of my life. Hector Tobar (author of recently mentioned The Barbarian Nurseries) wrote his reflections on the poem and poet for the LA Times here.
Giving the arts a prominent role in such events heightens the importance of any such occasion, and helps justify what I already firmly believe - the arts are not fluffy extras in education, but are part of the core.
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