In the summer of 2005, Illinois' then-Senator Barack Obama joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to narrate Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait. The concert took place in Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion on September 11, and was conducted by William Eddins. The audio and video available here is the only clip I have been able to unearth, and possibly the only one that exists of this event. The press release is here (PDF). If anyone knows of any other footage, please email me.
The clip lasts only a minute, but in one of those amazing coincidences, the humbling passage it captures is the one most relevant to today. That same weekend, Steppenwolf Theater presented Studs Terkel's Will the Circle Be Unbroken? in the park.
Photo: Ken Ilio
