Renée Fleming Cancels Kennedy Center Concerts in Latest Fallout From Trump Takeover
Renée Fleming became the latest performer to cancel scheduled appearances at the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, citing conflicts in her calendar.
She’s one of several high-profile entertainers who have canceled their Kennedy Center engagements amid President Donald Trump’s takeover of the institution and his renaming it to the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Fleming two concerts at the Kennedy Center were scheduled for May.
The Grammy winner’s cancellation may come as little surprise. She was the “Artistic Advisor at Large” for the center until she resigned last year. That departure came after Trump ousted Kennedy Center Chair David Rubenstein and President Deborah Rutter. Fleming’s reasoning for dropping out of her May performances were cited as “a scheduling conflict.”
The Grammy-winning soprano joins a growing list of performance who are canceling shows at the Kennedy Center in the wake of Trump’s controversial overhaul of the memorial center. The Washington National Opera, Béla Fleck, The Cookers, Doug Varone and Dancers and Chuck Redd have all canceled on the Trump-Kennedy Center in the last several weeks. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Issa Rae had also previously canceled performances at the Center
“I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center,” Fleck wrote on Instagram at the time. “Performing there has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music.”
The Kennedy Center’s name change sparked outrage at the end of 2025. Along with the many performers dropping out of their scheduled gigs, the change also appeared to impact the ratings for the Kennedy Center Honors – which Trump hosted himself.
The awards ceremony drew in just 3.01 million viewers as it broadcast on CBS and live streamed on Paramount+ on Tuesday, Dec. 23, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day big data plus panel figures. As preliminary ratings suggested, the 2025 ceremony marked the lowest audience for the Kennedy Center Honors, and even sunk lower than the COVID-restricted 2021 program, which gathered 4.1 million total viewers, its lowest viewership at the time.
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