Then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama at a May rally in Louisville. Copyrighted Herald-Leader photo by David Perry.

As the audience at November’s Kentucky District round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions waited to hear the results of the competition, musicologist Tedrin Blair Lindsay presented a tribute to Gail Robinson, playing some recordings of the late Metropolitan Opera star and University of Kentucky voice professor.

One of the tapes he selected was of Robinson singing in the White House in the early 1970s for an apparently appreciative President Richard M. Nixon.

You used to hear of these performances a lot. Such-and-such artist is playing the White House, a high honor for the performer to be requested by the President for a command performance.

If these are still going on, we don’t hear as much about them, but that’s one of the things that makes this new administration interesting.

Certainly, Barack Obama will face challenges unlike any President in most of our lifetimes has encountered upon being sworn into office. All eyes are upon him to see how he handles our cratering economy and a variety of international crises.

But some are also going to be interested in seeing how the arts will figure into President Obama’s administration.

The President-elect gave a big clue in his post-election interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press.

Speaking about opening the White House up to events such as lectures by scientists, he added he was, “Thinking about the diversity of our culture and, and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that’s America.”

He went on to say it is, “going to be incredibly important, particularly because we’re going through hard times. And, historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that, that sense that better days are ahead. I think that our art and our culture, our science, you know, that’s the essence of what makes America special, and, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House.”

He’s talking about using the bully pulpit of the Presidency to affirm the arts as important, not despite, but because of the pressing issues that face our country.

Prior to the election, there were signs that Obama was interested in supporting cultural institutions and artists in the form of a two-page arts platform, including ideas for cultural diplomacy and health care for artists, and forming an arts policy committee made up of notable artists, arts administrators and supporters.

A lot of writing about Obama and the arts tends to presume there will not be money forthcoming for arts programs because of the economic demands of failing companies, the foreclosure crisis and a handful of wars. Obama’s arts platform, which does include restoring funding for the NEA to 1992 levels, was drafted well before the economy went into a full tailspin.

But in a recent New York Times op-ed column, former chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities William R. Ferris pointed out that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs included arts funding that supported work such as the iconic photography of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks.

Ferris, who directs the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, suggests no dialing back of arts activity, instead advocating a cabinet-level position to oversee culture institutions such as the Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. Ferris says that would help strengthen every group by increasing coordination and collaboration among agencies and reducing the potential for turf wars.

“Mr. Obama has an opportunity to revitalize our national spirit by strengthening our cultural programs at every level,” Ferris writes. “It’s hard to imagine what could be a more important — and enduring — legacy.”

Certainly, in recent years, we have seen a nation more and more content to exclusively consume three-minute pop songs and sophomoric movies and TV shows with little exposure to finer arts. I love an Adam Sandler movie or three-chord pop song as much as anyone, but that alone is about as balanced as a diet of Oreos and soda.

A prominent, even cool arts advocate could do wonders for reorienting our attention.

The Baltimore Sun’s classical music critic Tim Smith imagined aloud what Obama supporting the arts could mean for his field and other artistic endeavors.

“One of the only trickle-down theories I have some faith in is this — if the most powerful person in the country embraces (heck, just feigns an appreciation for) classical music, it would be noticed, maybe emulated and even considered cool,” Smith wrote on his Clef Notes blog. “And the country’s future gets brighter every time a kid discovers Mozart or Puccini or Gershwin. If we’re lucky, music and the other arts will get a fresh lift from the Obama administration.”

Listen: NPR’s Morning Edition had an excellent report on Obama’s arts ideas.

Look: Check out Time magazine’s flickr package of art about Barack Obama. Central Kentuckians: Have you created, or do you know people in the area who have created art about the President-elect? E-mail me at rcopley@herald-leader.com.