{"id":547946,"date":"2026-01-28T00:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/547946\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T00:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:16:10","slug":"philip-glass-cancels-kennedy-center-premiere-of-symphony-no-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/547946\/","title":{"rendered":"Philip Glass cancels Kennedy Center premiere of Symphony No. 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Prize-winning composer Philip Glass has called off a scheduled world premiere at the Kennedy Center<\/a> of a symphony about Abraham Lincoln, the latest in a wave of cancellations since President Donald Trump<\/a> ousted the previous leadership.<\/p>\n

Glass\u2019 Symphony No. 15, \u201cLincoln,\u201d was to have been led by Grammy-winning conductor Karen Kamensek for performances on June 12 and June 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cSymphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony,\u201d Glass said in a statement released Tuesday by his publicist. \u201cTherefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roma Daravi, the center\u2019s vice president of public relations, responded in a statement, \u201cWe have no place for politics in the arts, and those calling for boycotts based on politics are making the wrong decision.\u201d <\/p>\n

Glass, who turns 89 on Saturday, was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2018. Three years earlier, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by then-President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Artists withdrawing from planned Kennedy Center performances have ranged from Ren\u00e9e Fleming<\/a> to Bela Fleck. Trump, whose handpicked board of trustees have said they are renaming the center the Trump Kennedy Center, has placed the venue at the heart of his campaign against what he calls \u201cwoke\u201d culture.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s name already has been added to the building\u2019s facade, despite scholars\u2019 saying that such a change requires an act of Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cLincoln\u201d was inspired by the 1838 \u201cLyceum Address,\u201d in which the future president warned against mob violence and the dangers it created for democracy and the rule of law. A 28-year-old Illinois state representative at the time, Lincoln delivered the speech to the Young Men\u2019s Lyceum, a debating society in Springfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Prize-winning composer Philip Glass has called off a scheduled world premiere at the Kennedy…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":547947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[66557,11744,12785,84,69,171,57,1818,240840,170026,80,402,235115,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-547946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-abraham-lincoln","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-dc-wire","11":"tag-district-of-columbia","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-illinois","16":"tag-karen-kamensek","17":"tag-philip-glass","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-protests-and-demonstrations","20":"tag-send-to-apple-news","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115969850426446346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}