Philip Glass and Renée Fleming Latest Artists to Cancel Kennedy Center Engagements

Legendary American composer and 2018 Kennedy Center honoree Philip Glass has informed management of the National Symphony Orchestra that he does not want his Symphony No. 15 performed at the Kennedy Center.

“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony,” he wrote in a brief letter posted to the composer’s Facebook page.

Glass’s decision to withdraw comes just days after it was reported that soprano Renée Fleming (a 2023 honoree and former artistic adviser of the Kennedy Center) had canceled a scheduled engagement in May. According to a note on the Center’s website, she had withdrawn “due to a scheduling conflict.” Fleming has not publicly commented about the cancellation or her reason for it.

Earlier this month, leadership of the Washington National Opera, which has called the Kennedy Center home since 1971, announced their intention to depart the venue.

The Kennedy Center has been rocked by controversy since last February, when the newly inaugurated President Trump conducted a purge of trustees, replacing them with his own slate of loyalists. The new trustees very quickly elected Trump chairman of the board. Several scheduled productions were then canceled or withdrew. In December, the board voted to rename the venue “the Trump-Kennedy Center,” and although the name of the center can only be legally changed by an act of Congress, that did not stop the trustees from ordering a change to the signage on the building and on the website. This prompted a spate of new cancellations and the departure of the American College Theater Festival.

Glass is the composer of the operas Einstein on the Beach and Akhnaten. Fleming was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the 2018 Broadway revival of Carousel.

The National Symphony Orchestra, which receives nearly a quarter of its operating budget from the Kennedy Center, has no intention of leaving the venue, according to recent statements in the New York Times by its conductor, Gianandrea Noseda.