Which artists and musicians have cancelled the Kennedy Center so far?
2 February 2026, 10:24
Philip Glass and Reneé Fleming have become the latest musicians to withdraw from the Trump Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, which will close for renovations for two years.
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A diverse line-up of musical artists has now cancelled performances at the Trump Kennedy Center and the classical voice is crescendoing.
Composer Philip Glass is possibly the most high-profile classical figure to walk away so far. In late January this year he withdrew the world premiere of his Symphony No 15, Lincoln, commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra.
Glass, who received a Kennedy Center Honours award in 2018, said in a statement, “the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”
President Trump changed the arts venue’s name to the Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts back in December, after a year of his own new board of trustees. By that stage world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming had left her role as artistic advisor at large – alongside her colleagues Ben Folds and Shonda Rhimes – after the removal of long-standing leaders David Rubenstein and Deborah Rutter.
On Sunday 1 February, Donald Trump announced the Kennedy Center would close for renovations. The closure, currently slated for 4 July, “will produce a much faster and higher quality result”, he said on social media.
Read more: Washington National Opera ends 55‑year residency at the Trump Kennedy Center
Fleming, who sang at President Biden’s inauguration mass, has recently announced she’ll no longer appear in her planned May 2026 concerts with James Gaffigan and the National Symphony Orchestra, citing scheduling conflicts as a reason.
In January, the Washington National Opera put an end to its residency at the venue after more than five decades. While an email statement from the company suggested that the split was “amicable”, the company said a new requirement that productions be fully funded in advance did not reflect how opera economics work. The Kennedy Center’s president Richard Grenell took to X to insist that the centre chose to end the exclusive partnership so it could bring in other opera troupes.
In January, Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz pulled out of a planned Washington National Opera gala, due to take place in May. Schwartz said at the time that the Kennedy Center was founded as “an apolitical home for free artistic expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies”, but that appearing there “has now become an ideological statement”.
Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell challenged the idea that Schwartz was ever formally engaged, saying, “He was never signed and I've never had a single conversation on him since arriving.”
Read more: Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz boycotts Trump’s Kennedy Center gala
Renée Fleming names the most loved soprano arias of all time
Beyond the classical world, the list of musicians pulling out has grown steadily. Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda and producer Jeffrey Seller) cancelled its planned Kennedy Center run in March 2025, citing both a “new spirit of partisanship” and concerns that contracts could not be trusted under the new leadership.
Banjo player Béla Fleck called the venue “charged and political” in a January 2025 Instagram statement and withdrew from his upcoming National Symphony Orchestra dates. Jazz ensemble The Cookers, who dropped their ‘A Jazz New Year’s Eve’ appearance, claiming a commitment to music that “reaches across divisions rather than deepening them”.
The same year, the Kennedy Center threatened a lawsuit to Christmas Eve regular, jazz drummer Chuck Redd, who cancelled after the Trump rebrand. Other folk and roots artists who have taken their instruments home include Magpie, Kristy Lee, Low Cut Connie, Rhiannon Giddens and Balún.
But the orchestra plays on. The National Symphony Orchestra, directed by Gianandrea Noseda, has said it has no plans to leave. “I cannot make everybody happy,” Noseda has said.
“We are going to make this work,” Joan Bialek, the chair of the National Symphony Orchestra board, told the New York Times, “I was born in Washington, grew up with the Kennedy Center, grew up in the N.S.O., and I can’t let it disappear. We will make it through this.”
