Rice Briefs President on Piano Skills

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, more accustomed to briefing President Bush on world crises, gave him instead a flawless performance of Brahms at Monday’s presentation of the National Medals of Arts and National Humanities Medals.

In a long black ball gown, the accomplished pianist accompanied cellist Yo-Yo Ma in the slow movement of Brahms’ violin sonata in D minor. An approving Ma insisted afterward that Rice, who began playing the piano at age 3 1/2, take several bows to a standing ovation and then he led her across the Constitution Hall stage for a congratulatory kiss from the president.

Spokeswoman Anna Perez said that Rice had earlier in the day squeezed in rehearsal time with Ma between national security meetings.

Rice’s unusual duet with Ma was, in First Lady Laura Bush’s words, a “prayer for peace.”

They performed at the close of a ceremony in which the Bushes awarded national medals to Ma and 15 other artists and writers: Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation; Latino writer Rudolfo Anaya; country music legend Johnny Cash; actor and director Kirk Douglas; pioneer “color field” painter Helen Frankenthaler; modern dance educator Judith Jamison; comedy director Mike Nichols; Jose Cisneros, illustrator of America’s Southwest; psychiatrist Robert Coles; literacy advocate Sharon Darling; historian and writer William Manchester; the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Richard Peck, novelist for young readers; musicologist Eileen Jackson Southern, and novelist Tom Wolfe.