Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow Remarks at a Reception Honoring Gold Medal Winners Elmar Oliveira and Nathaniel Rosen.

This is a good year for our Nation, and this is a wonderful day for me.

I spend a large part of my life listening to beautiful music in the Oval Office and am an admirer for many years of those who have superlative talent and who share it with their fellow human beings.

It's been 12 years since the United States had a gold medal brought back to us from the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. I believe it was 20 years ago that Van Cliburn brought back a gold medal and a first-place award in that top competition among the world's greatest musicians.

This year we have two gold medals, and I'm glad it happened while I was President. [Laughter]

Nathaniel Rosen, Nick Rosen, is a cellist who, through a major portion of his life, has had a superb talent. He was in a final competition in Moscow in 1966. He didn't win then, but he came back to Pittsburgh and has been admired by his fellow townsmen, by those who perform with him, and by literally tens of thousands of people in audiences who have recognized what he has to offer all of us in the enjoyment of beautiful music.

He went back this year and competed and, as you know, he won.

His wife, Jenny, has two great characteristics: One is that she's a cellist, and the other one is that she's from Macon, Georgia. [Laughter]

His father, David, is a violinist and, as you know, the whole family has had a mutual contribution toward competition and toward the achievement of recognized excellence.

Elmar Oliveira also brought back a gold medal to us from the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow this year—a superb violinist from Binghamton, New York, a man who's benefited from the musical commitment of his own family. His father, I understand, made his first violin—is that correct? And he's had a notable achievement of his own, even at an early age.

When he was 16 years old, he was one of the soloists with the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. So, today I'm pleased to recognize this great achievement for themselves, personally, for our Nation, and, indeed, for the entire world.

During the Tchaikovsky Competition this year, there were 280 competitors from 37 different nations and, as you know, they have to be great musicians before they are permitted even to compete.

This afternoon, we would also like to recognize the Board of Directors of a new Federal organization, the Institute of Museum Services. And it's a good juxtaposition, because we want American people to be able to enjoy art, music, the sciences, history, in all its forms. We are blessed not only by great performers, great composers, great artists, but also by great museums, which are not dead exhibitions of past, gone glory, but live openings for Americans' hearts and minds to understand what our Nation is, what it has been, and in addition, what it can be.

It's a continuing, learning process, a stretching of one's heart and one's mind, to understand the greatness of the world that is ours in a free and democratic society.

And this afternoon, I would like to congratulate those who are forming the new Institute of Museum Services and to congratulate and to thank these two wonderful American musicians who have honored themselves, their families, their fellow musicians, their home communities, our Nation, and the entire world with their superb talent and their superb commitment to demonstrate this talent for the blessings of us all.

Nick, congratulations. Elmar, congratulations.

We would like to meet each one of you individually, so Rosalynn and I will go and form a two-person receiving line. Two or four? Would you like to meet Nick and Elmar? And we have Joan Mondale here, too, who's the nationally famous art-Joan, come on up. I understand. Come on up.

As is so often the case in Washington, our two-person receiving line has now been expanded to five persons, and before it gets any greater, I'm going to declare this meeting adjourned and we'll meet you right over here. And I would like for the families of the two musicians to come through the line first so that we might get an individual photograph with all of you. Thank you very much.