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Wednesday, January 28, 2026
Philip Glass cancels Kennedy Center premiere of Symphony No. 15
AP News: Prize-winning composer Philip Glass has called off a scheduled world premiere at the Kennedy Center of a symphony about Abraham Lincoln, the latest in a wave of cancellations since President Donald Trump ousted the previous leadership.
2 comments:
Max A
said...
“We have no place for politics in the arts” I couldn’t think of a more inaccurate statement actually. How much clearer can you make it that you don’t get it? Saying that “it doesn’t matter, art is whatever, just play the symphony” as the literal VP of public relations at an ARTS CENTER just goes to show how ill-suited the new staff is to the job. I’m glad Philip Glass has cancelled, and I hope more will continue to cancel. Making an arts center that’s against “woke culture” is against art itself. There are more political art pieces than there are apolitical, and it “just so happens” that they tend to be on the more progressive side of things. Also, I find it ironic that the symphony being cancelled is called “Lincoln.” Some people consider Republicans “the party of Lincoln” (people who don’t know about the party switch), but he truly would be against vainly naming an already named building after yourself and making it extremely political while claiming that “art isn’t political.”
Echoing Max A’s sentiments, Roma Daravi’s statement that “We have no place for politics in the arts” is hypocritical at best and moronic at worst. The truth is that The Kennedy Center has ALWAYS been political. Furthermore, it’s one of the best examples of how politics is tied to mainstream art in the United States as an Arts Center that was founded by a United States President, and reflects the political climate as it’s housed and controlled by the political capital of the United States. While I respect artists who have boycotted the Kennedy Center by pulling their performances in protest of the “Trump takeover”, it reflects a sad reality for the theatrical scene in Washington DC. To see a place as prized and valued as The Kennedy Center turned into a testament of ego and symbolic cultural control by Trump is one thing. To see audiences and employees of the Kennedy Center lost and disillusioned by the situation is another. There are numerous positive interpretations of this situation; however, such audience’s turn to regional theaters instead and protest with the Kennedy Center’s downfall economically and culturally, but that doesn’t change the sad state of affairs that led to these outcomes.
2 comments:
“We have no place for politics in the arts” I couldn’t think of a more inaccurate statement actually. How much clearer can you make it that you don’t get it? Saying that “it doesn’t matter, art is whatever, just play the symphony” as the literal VP of public relations at an ARTS CENTER just goes to show how ill-suited the new staff is to the job. I’m glad Philip Glass has cancelled, and I hope more will continue to cancel. Making an arts center that’s against “woke culture” is against art itself. There are more political art pieces than there are apolitical, and it “just so happens” that they tend to be on the more progressive side of things. Also, I find it ironic that the symphony being cancelled is called “Lincoln.” Some people consider Republicans “the party of Lincoln” (people who don’t know about the party switch), but he truly would be against vainly naming an already named building after yourself and making it extremely political while claiming that “art isn’t political.”
Echoing Max A’s sentiments, Roma Daravi’s statement that “We have no place for politics in the arts” is hypocritical at best and moronic at worst. The truth is that The Kennedy Center has ALWAYS been political. Furthermore, it’s one of the best examples of how politics is tied to mainstream art in the United States as an Arts Center that was founded by a United States President, and reflects the political climate as it’s housed and controlled by the political capital of the United States. While I respect artists who have boycotted the Kennedy Center by pulling their performances in protest of the “Trump takeover”, it reflects a sad reality for the theatrical scene in Washington DC. To see a place as prized and valued as The Kennedy Center turned into a testament of ego and symbolic cultural control by Trump is one thing. To see audiences and employees of the Kennedy Center lost and disillusioned by the situation is another. There are numerous positive interpretations of this situation; however, such audience’s turn to regional theaters instead and protest with the Kennedy Center’s downfall economically and culturally, but that doesn’t change the sad state of affairs that led to these outcomes.
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