John Williams to compose new piece for Obama's inaugural ceremony.

jwfan.com reports



"Musical Selection by composer/arranger John Williams with Itzhak Perlman, violin; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Gabriela Montero, piano; and Anthony McGill, clarinet"


So we're in for a treat.

 

Oh, great. I guess that rules out the '85 Bears reunion performance of Super Bowl Shuffle I was banking on...

 

Someone in the Obama camp has good taste! I'm curious to hear what he comes up with.

 

Apparently, the piece will be book ended by Williams' composition, but the heart of the piece will be the traditional Shaker hymn "The Gift to Be Simple," which Copland used in "Appalachian Spring." The piece will run about 4.5 minutes.

Here's the rest of the article. It's a nice read: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998645.html?categoryid=16&cs=1

 

NICE!!

 

Wow, that was truly a nice piece! I really liked it, a lot.

 

I rather liked it, and would definitely like to hear it again. Watching Yo-Yo Ma play is so much fun... that performance is still very fresh in my mind.

 

Excellent.

 

Nicely done. I did kinda miss the big fanfare that the song usually ends with, but it was still great.

 

Shame it was only a recording

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/obama_inauguration/7846472.stm

 

It's not like they can't play it, though.

The conditions were terrible, and I commend their foresight.

 

Well, I understand why they would use a recording instead of actually playing; you really wouldn't want to play an instrument in weather like that.

 

That type of weather would totally destroy string instruments. It was the only thing they could do.