WASHINGTON — The White House sounded more like the music wing of a high school than a seat of government Monday — and that’s just the way first lady Michelle Obama likes it.
She launched a White House music festival that brought 150 students together with musical legends such as Wynton Marsalis and Paquito D’Rivera for a workshop on jazz, a genre the first lady called “America’s greatest artistic gift to the world.”
A jazz ensemble is like a democracy, she said, and proves that “when we work together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”
The students in the workshop were chosen from some of the nation’s top music schools, including the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts in Washington and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in New Orleans.
With instruments in tow, they filed into the ornately decorated White House East Room and State Dining Room to learn from the jazz masters.
“I think it’s good for the youth to come in and learn about music,” said Linton Smith, a 17-year-old trumpet player from New Orleans.
From hosting music workshops to inviting schoolchildren to help plant a vegetable garden on the South Lawn, the first lady has said she wants to open the White House up to the American public. “This is a place to honor America’s past, celebrate its present and create its future,” she said.
The White House music series will continue later this year with workshops on classical and country music.
