If, as John Lennon once said in song, life is what happens while you're making other plans, then Marc Miller can more fully relate now, too.

Two weeks ago, he was enjoying a quiet, calm autumn morning in his office. He was going over notes. He was ogling memos. He was, yes, making other plans.

That's when he clicked on his e-mail. "Hey, the White House is trying to get you!" read a note.

He read further.

"Can you get 12 of your best musician/students and fly them out to the White House in two weeks?"

He read further.

"Michelle (Obama) is organizing it, as part of a White House music series."

His reaction was obvious, of course.

"I figured it was spam, a joke. I mean, a message that the White House wanted me to send out kids to perform there? Uh, on what? I didn't have any money to send out 12 kids to Washington."

So here's the joke:

It wasn't one.

The e-mail note was from Awadagin Pratt, the renowned 44-year-old concert pianist who grew up in Bloomington-Normal and graduated from Normal Community, and later founded the Pratt Music Foundation Preparatory Music Program.

Tuesday at noon, Miller, who is president of the Pratt Foundation, watched 12 Bloomington-Normal student-musician "scholars" -- from Bloomington High, U High, Normal Community West, Calvary Baptist Academy, Chiddix Junior High, one even home-schooled -- board an AirTran jet at Central Illinois Regional Airport as they flew off to D.C.

And Wednesday afternoon, as part of a day honoring classical music at the White House, the students will join about 138 others from across America, attend a workshop held inside the White House (taught by Pratt, master violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Alisia Weilerstein and classical guitarist Sharon Isbin), and then attend a concert at the executive residence, with Michelle Obama expected in attendance and possibly the president.

"It's been a fast two weeks," deadpans Miller.

To begin with, there was the negotiation with the White House, such as paperwork required for security clearances. Miller also faced finding a way to fund a trip, arrange flights and last night's lodging in D.C., and purchase liability insurance.

"From the moment of that first e-mail," Miller says, "I was faced with figuring how to make this all happen in only days. I mean, my first question was, 'What do we do? Pile 12 kids in a van?' Then there was the issue of financing it. But this community is so good, it just happened. People stepped forward to write checks. One board member: 'If you didn't make enough money, I'll pay this myself.' And State Farm was kind enough to foot the rest."

Invited students are cellists Samuel Birsa, Brandon Churchill and Stephen Cook; violinists Shelby Bays, Zari Gary, Tess Johnson, Haden Toohill, and Mikhayla Price-Hutcherson; and pianists Morgan Schaub, Reyhana Pippins, Ryan Cavallo and Andrew Powers.

All are recipients of Pratt scholarships, which support classical music education in Bloomington-Normal in strings and piano, and are awarded annually to students considered as talented, motivated youth, grades kindergarten through 12.

"This is a big, totally unexpected thing," says Miller. "When we called the 12 students to tell them what they were about to experience, we told them this is THE White House.

"That's when one student said, 'Oh, how great!'

"There was a pause and she asked, 'Just which white house in Bloomington is this?'"

"When I told her just which White House," laughs Miller, "she let out an even bigger 'Ohhhhhhh!'"

A final note:

Carried aboard the plane was a "present" to the president and First Lady from Bloomington's Miller Park Zoo -- three of their popular reindeer-droppings ornaments -- one for the official tree and one each for First Daughters Malia and Sasha. But trip leaders were skeptical whether the last-minute gift would see the inside of the most protected home in America.

"They (the students) won't even be allowed to take in cameras or cell phones (in secured areas of the White House)," said Karen Stephens, a Pratt Music Foundation advisory board member. "So I doubt if an ornament made out of reindeer poo would be allowed, either."

Reindeer can fly but, at the White House, their poo may not.