Béla Fleck is the latest artist to pull out of an upcoming performance at the Kennedy Center in the wake of Donald Trump‘s controversial takeover. The Grammy-winning banjoist was scheduled to perform with the National Symphony Orchestra in February, but announced last night that he has cancelled.
“I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center,” Fleck wrote on social media. “Performing there has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music. I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”
Fleck’s cancellation comes only days after Stephen Schwartz, the celebrated Oscar-winning composer behind Wicked and other hit musicals, pulled out of a scheduled appearance at the Kennedy Center in protest of Trump’s takeover of the institution and its legally dubious name change.
Schwartz was set to host the Washington National Opera Gala at the Kennedy Center on May 16, but in an email sent to Newsday, said the Center “no longer represents the apolitical place for free artistic expression it was founded to be.” He added: “There’s no way I would set foot in it now.”
Many artists have canceled shows at the Kennedy over the past year. The first round was in protest of Trump’s moves in early 2025 to gut the Center’s board, fill it with cronies, and install himself as chairman. At the end of last year, another group of artists nixed shows after Trump’s board unanimously voted to change the institution’s name to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Cancellations following the name change included the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam, as well as shows by the New York Dance Company, the jazz band the Cookers, jazz musician Wayne Tucker, and folk singer Kristy Lee. Chuck Redd, who’s led the Christmas Eve Jazz Jam since 2006, explained in a statement, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda called off a scheduled revival of Hamilton originally set for spring 2026. “This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” Miranda said. “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.”
