CLEVELAND, Tenn. (AP) — About 200 students from Cleveland, Tennessee’s Lee University left by bus for Washington D.C. Friday morning to participate in Monday’s presidential inaugural.
A choir from Lee University will sing for the inaugural crowd prior to President Obama being sworn in for his second term.
Lee is a private Christian university that’s well-known for its music programs. Its choral ensembles have performed at Carnegie Hall, the World's Fair, the Kennedy Center, the White House and the Notre Dame Cathedral.
WMOT News reached Dr. William Green, Dean of Lee’s School of Music, as the university’s busses motored north early Friday morning. He gave WMOT a preview of the songs his choir will perform on Monday.
“On that list are This Land is Your Land, Chattanooga Choo Choo, a piece that’s called All That Has Life and Breath, Praise Ye the Lord. Spiritiuals: I Can Tell the World by Moses Hogan; Saints Bound for Heaven, a very traditional spiritual, as well as some other pieces.”
Dean Lee says his students will perform while standing on risers directly behind and above the inaugural stage, giving them a ring-side seat for the nation’s 57th inaugural ceremony.