“It is so, and I’ll tell you, this is standard operating procedure for the marine band that performs at every inaugural. Because it’s on January 20th, you never know what the weather’s going to be like. So we recorded on Sunday and on Monday we had a sound check. I think, somewhere between that rehearsal and realizing that all of our instruments were not really functioning… In fact, during the sound check on the 19th, Gabriela [Montero] would be playing the keys, and the keys would just stay down.”
– Due to fears about the damage that frigid temperatures could do to their instruments, Yo-Yo Ma explains to NPR why he and other musicians pre-recorded their performance two days before the inauguration and only pretended to be playing while it was piped in during Tuesday’s ceremony.