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Music Director Crispin Cioe “In Performance At The White House”

Music Director Crispin Cioe In Performance at the White House

Crispin Cioe is Music Director and Sax Soloist on Nationally Televised PBS Celebration

Crispin Cioe serves as Music Director and Sax Soloist for “In Performance At The White House:  A Celebration of American Creativity”. The event for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama celebrates art and literature in American music with selections from hip-hop, blues and the American Songbook.

Taped before a live audience in the East Room of the White House with the President and First Lady in the front row, the show commemorates the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts. Crispin leads a stellar band in an Americana-tinged tribute that includes performances by James Taylor, Keb ‘Mo, Buddy Guy, Esperanza Spalding, Carol Burnett, Queen Latifah, Smokey Robinson, MC Lyte, Usher, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra MacDonald, and Smokey Robinson.

During “In Performance At The White House:  A Celebration of American Creativity”, Usher performs his rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” with solos from Trombone Shorty and Saxophonist Crispin Cioe, the show’s Music Director.

National Endowment for the Humanities

In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of American Creativity airs on PBS stations nationwide. The song selections draw from American-originated musical genres, including hip-hop, blues, and the American songbook. NEH has awarded grants for education seminars on the history of jazz and Memphis blues and preservation grants to protect early recordings of American music.

The NEH show highlights include a reading of “Civil War Letters,” a poem featured in a landmark NEH-funded documentary film The Civil War by Ken Burns, and the work of E.L. Doctorow, a recipient of the 1998 National Humanities Medal.

Epic Horn Arrangement by Music Director Crispin Cioe

Trombone Shorty plays a thrilling must-see closing number with Crispin’s epic horn arrangements for “Fire on the Bayou”, a song written by the Neville Brothers.

Support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York

The show is possible in part with generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, in celebration of NEH and in honor of Senator Claiborne Pell, a co-sponsor of the founding legislation. Additional funding support comes from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Spencer Foundation and Ford Foundation. You can watch the complete show in the video below.

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