A few weeks ago, Rocco Landesman, the chairman of theNational Endowment for the Arts, was in the East Room of the White House as President Obama conferred this year’s National Medal of Arts on Jessye Norman, Rita Moreno, Maya Lin and Michael Tilson Thomas, among others.
On Monday, the cowboy-booted country music fan and self-described “recovering producer” who made his name on Broadway spent about 90 minutes in a very different neighborhood.
