Sing Out, Mr. President: NPR Music Premieres New Presidential Songs

by Thomas Huizenga

Thomas Jefferson was a fiddler. Harry Truman played piano. Bill
Clinton works the saxophone. But choral conductor and educator
Judith Clurman makes them all sing.

Clurman commissioned 16 contemporary composers to write short
choral pieces based on the words of American presidents for a cycle
she calls Mr. President.

In celebration of Presidents’ Day, NPR Music will premiere all
16 works, newly recorded by Clurman and her Essential Voices USA
choir as a part of her February residency. A new presidential song
will be posted on these pages throughout the month, beginning
Monday, Feb. 7th. You can also hear interviews with Clurman and the
composers about each piece.

The seeds of Mr. President were planted just two days after the
September 11th attacks, when Clurman found herself at a New York
City firehouse leading a choir singing “America the Beautiful.”

“Tears were streaming down our faces,” Clurman recalls. “I was
very moved.” But something else began stirring inside Clurman, who
has always loved American music and politics.

“I realized that the songs that we just sing naturally, like ‘My
Country, ‘Tis of Thee,’ ‘America the Beautiful,’ ‘God Bless
America’ and American folk songs, had deep, deep meaning for
people.”

So Clurman approached the Library of Congress in Washington with
her idea.