White House Music Series
December 16th 2009 to December 17th 2009
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Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss & Union Station perform during an event celebrating Country Music in the East Room of the White House, July 21, 2009. Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton |
White House Music
Series: CMA Helps Bring Music and History Together for Nashville
Students
On Friday, July 3, Lynn
Adelman, Assistant Director of the W. O. Smith Nashville Community
Music School, informed Jonah Rabinowitz, the school’s Executive
Director, that he’d better take the call she was about to transfer to
his phone.
The woman on the line, a member of the
White House staff, informed him that President Barack Obama and the
First Lady would host the second stage of its ongoing music series
which celebrates the arts and demonstrates the importance of arts
education. The event would focus on Country Music and the W. O. Smith
School was invited to bring a group of students to attend an afternoon
educational workshop in the State Dining Room with Alison Krauss and
Brad Paisley that would precede the evening show in the East Room.
“My first response was, ‘This is unbelievable, this
is fantastic, but can you guys help us at all with expenses?’”
Rabinowitz recalled. “Their response was, ‘No, but the invitation is
open to you and we need to know in a couple of days whether you’ll
accept it.’”
Clearly, Rabinowitz couldn’t say no.
So to address the question of funding travel and accommodations, he
called a member of the school’s Advisory Board, Steve Buchanan, Senior
VP, Media and Entertainment, Gaylord Entertainment.
As President-Elect of the CMA Board of Directors,
Buchanan knew what to do. “Given our Keep the Music Playing
initiative,” he said, referring to CMA’s program to help fund music
education in Metro Nashville Public Schools, “it seemed to me that this
was an opportunity for CMA to have a tremendous impact on these kids’
lives.”
“This is a one-time opportunity that is a
natural fit for our campaign of supporting music education for public
school students and providing musical experiences that they otherwise
would not be able to enjoy,” agreed CMA CEO Tammy Genovese. “These
outstanding young musicians are the future of the music industry, and
what a meaningful lesson they’ll learn about the power of following
your dreams and believing that anything is possible.”
CMA underwrote all travel costs involved in busing
40 W.O. Smith music students and four chaperones from Nashville to
Washington, D.C., and back. (A fifth chaperone, Colleen Dowd, VP, HCA,
and a member of the W.O. Smith School Board of Directors, was already
in Washington on business.) A gala sendoff was arranged at the school
on the evening of Sunday, July 19; the bus arrived the next morning,
after which the students visited museums that lined the National Mall
before checking into the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention
Center, where rooms had been deeply discounted on their behalf. Cracker
Barrel Old Country Store provided gold cards that were redeemed for two
free meals during the trip.
The next day began with
visits to the office of U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) and the
gallery at the House of Representatives while it was in session. Then,
following lunch in the House cafeteria, they made the nearly two-mile
trek to the White House on foot. “We did that on purpose,” Rabinowitz
said. “It was important to get a feel for the pulse of the city.”
On arrival, they were escorted into the State
Dining Room. Shortly after that, Krauss and Paisley took their seats on
stools before a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln. Following an
introduction by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, each played two
acoustic songs, Paisley working solo and Krauss playing fiddle with
backup from Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski. They were then
interviewed by Jay Orr, VP of Museum Programs, Country Music Hall of
Fame and Museum, and took questions from among the 120 students
attending from W. O. Smith and other invited schools.
That evening, with WSM/Nashville broadcast
personality and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs emceeing, Krauss
and Paisley performed with their bands, and Country Music Hall of Fame
member Charley Pride sang, before President Obama, his family and
invited guests, including Genovese and CMA Senior VP Bobette Dudley.
The show was streamed live on www.WhiteHouse.gov/Live and recorded,
along with other highlights of the day, to air on GAC. Hosted by Storme
Warren, “Country at the White House” premiered on Aug. 15 and will
repeat 8 PM/ET Sunday, Nov. 8. Stubbs also reported on the event
through a radio special, “Mr. Stubbs Goes to Washington,” broadcast
over WSM-AM Nashville. Episodes from this program, along with photos,
Webisodes and blogs by Stubbs, Paisley and Tennessee Governor Phil
Bredesen, are available at www.WSMonline.com.
“We
at GAC are huge believers in the work of W.O. Smith,” said Ed Hardy,
GAC President, and VP of the W.O. Smith School Board. “Producing a
one-hour special on GAC highlighting the Country Music events at the
White House, including the W.O. Smith students’ trip to the event, will
help spread the word about this vital community asset and the benefits
of arts education.”
In a www.CNN.com blog
(also posted on www.WSMonline.com), Paisley recounted the
experience of closing his set with “Welcome to the Future,” whose story
of overcoming racial intolerance bore a special relevance to the
evening. After tipping his hat to President Obama, Paisley wrote, “I
came off and just started bawling because it was so emotional for me to
sing those words. He came to me and said, ‘If I could sing like you,’
which was really cool. And then he sort of looked me in the eye and he
said, ‘Wonderful, wonderful words.’ And I said, ‘Thank you, sir. I
meant them.’”
As for the W.O. Smith students, they
enjoyed a reflective afternoon of their own, culminating in a visit to
the Lincoln Memorial, after which they boarded their bus for a night in
Manassas, Va., before completing the trip back home. Like Paisley,
Patricia Dinning, going into her senior year at the Nashville School of
the Arts, found her Washington visit illuminating as well as relevant
to her dreams of pursuing a history major in college.
“I was inspired and amazed,” she said. “And it
really amplified my feelings toward history, because music has history
in itself, and that history goes into America’s history. It all
connects and helps to inspire how we all approach the future.”
Founded in 1984, the W.O. Smith Nashville Community
Music School was created for the purpose of making quality music
instruction available to talented, interested, deserving children from
low income families at the nominal fee of 50 cents a lesson.
Instruction is provided by a 160-member volunteer faculty of area
musicians from many elements of the Nashville music scene including
studio musicians, symphony players, college professors, public school
teachers, church musicians, private teachers and university students,
who each donate up to four hours a week teaching their students.
The school serves more than 600 students, ages 6 to
18, representing academic schools from across Metro Davidson County and
Middle Tennessee. It offers introductory classes for
pre-instrumentalists, individual and group lessons in all band and
orchestra instruments, piano, guitar and voice. A nonprofit educational
institution, the W. O. Smith Music School also provides computer
assisted instruction in music fundamentals and theory, classes in
composition, music technology and recording.
“The
continuing generosity of CMA for our city’s children is allowing W.O.
Smith Music School students to be a part of this important experience,
one that we know will last a lifetime,” Rabinowitz said. “As always,
CMA provides important leadership in the music education of children in
Metro Nashville Schools. We are grateful to CMA as well as GAC, Gaylord
and Cracker Barrel for their support of our students.”
Tune into GAC on
Dec. 16, 17 and 28 for the special “Country at the White House,” which
documents this historic event with host Storme
Warren.
By Bob
Doerschuk
© 2009 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music
Association®, Inc.
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