Add another name to the ever-growing list as singer-actress Renée Fleming is the latest act to cancel performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Fleming has axed two upcoming dates scheduled for May 29th and 30th, citing a “scheduling conflict.” Other participants, conductor James Gaffigan and the National Symphony Orchestra, remain on the bill for those dates, and “a new soloist and repertoire will be announced at a later date,” according to the Kennedy Center website.
As Rolling Stone pointed out, Fleming’s canceled dates follow her 2025 resignation as the Kennedy Center’s Artistic Advisor-at-Large. Having held that role since 2016, Fleming seemingly left in the wake of large-scale “shakeups” at the Kennedy Center, including the forced departures of both President Deborah Rutter and Chair David Rubenstein.
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All of these cancelations and organizational changes come from, you guessed it, Donald Trump himself. In early 2025, Trump not only ousted the board (in what some news outlets called a “purge”), but also named himself the Kennedy Center chairman. Then, toward the end of last year, he and his board of “hand-selected” members changed the name to the Trump-Kennedy Memorial Center.
As mentioned, Fleming joins quite the lengthy list of talents who have canceled gigs or otherwise walked away from obligations with the Kennedy Center. That includes Béla Fleck, The Cookers, a touring production of Hamilton, Rhiannon Giddens, and the Washington National Opera, which ended a 55-year association. Meanwhile, Ben Folds departed as another artistic adviser, and Shonda Rhimes resigned from the board of trustees.
The Kennedy Center’s response to these moves and cancellations has been exactly what you’d expect. In a social media post from earlier this month, Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell said that “the artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership. Their actions prove that the previous team was more concerned about booking far left political activists rather than artists willing to perform for everyone regardless of their political beliefs.”
