Grammy winner Renee Fleming cancels Kennedy Center appearances

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Fri Jan 23, 2026, 09:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: The Hill

Grammy Award-winning opera singer Renée Fleming will no longer participate in a pair of symphony performances at the Kennedy Center this spring, according to a message on the center’s website.

Fleming was scheduled to appear with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) on May 29-30 in a program titled “Appalachian Spring,” featuring American conductor James Gaffigan.

“Renée Fleming regrets that, due to a scheduling conflict, she must withdraw from her May 2026 concerts with the NSO,” the notice states. “A new soloist and repertoire will be announced at a later date, and the remainder of the program remains unchanged.”

Fleming, who previously served as artistic adviser at large to the Kennedy Center, was one of several people to depart from the arts and cultural institution after President Trump took it over early last year and replaced several members on the board.

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Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5703765-kennedy-center-renee-fleming-cancellation/

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"A scheduling conflict" is the excuse the Kennedy Center gave.

From The Independent:

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/news/renee-fleming-kennedy-center-cancellation-trump-b2906800.html

Renée Fleming has pulled out of two scheduled May appearances at the Kennedy Center, marking the latest in a series of high-profile withdrawals since Donald Trump's administration ousted the previous leadership and the new management announced the venue would be renamed the Trump Kennedy Center.

The acclaimed Grammy-winning soprano was set to perform with conductor James Gaffigan and the National Symphony Orchestra. Her decision follows her resignation a year ago as "Artistic Advisor at Large," when she cited the forced departures of Kennedy Center Chair David Rubenstein and its president, Deborah Rutter. The center itself attributed her cancellation from the May concerts to "a scheduling conflict."

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Maybe we should all set up our own internal equivalent Kennedy Center, so the good name of Kennedy won't be besmirched

and dragged in the mud along w/ tRUMP's name.

Any volunteers for a new replacement Kennedy Two Center, one w/ bylaws that purposely omit tRUMP and all of his clan from ever attending or supporting. I don't want a f**king dime of his dirty money.

[Skittles]

2. THANK YOU MS. FLEMING

[young_at_heart]

3. An American of her stature is BIG news!

A huge thank you to Renee Fleming, a woman with the voice of an angel. She belongs on a pedestal!

[wolfie001]

4. Good for her!

Hero! Class act!
[img][/img]

[AverageOldGuy]

5. She is not only a Grammy winner

From Wikipedia

She has a worldwide acclaimed operatic full lyric soprano voice. She has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English.
. . .
Beyond opera, Fleming has sung and recorded lieder, chansons, jazz, musical theatre, and indie rock, and she has performed with a wide range of artists, including Luciano Pavarotti, Lou Reed, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Andrea Bocelli, Sting, John Prine, and Dead & Company.

She received a Kennedy Center honor in 2023 and, as I recall, she sang the National Anthem at a Super Bowl.

Fleming is serious.

Her cancelling at the Kennedy Center is a REALLY BIG THING. Not that Trump will understand.

[twodogsbarking]

6. Maybe they can use the Center to sell Halloween stuff.

[usonian]

7. Grammy is the LEAST of her honors.

Stay Classy, DU.

[3catwoman3]

8. Standing ovation to Renee Fleming! My late mother was the school nurse...

......at the middle school Renee Fleming attended in Gates-Chili NY, a suburb of Rochester. Fleming attended the world famous Eastman School of Music, also in Rochester, established by philanthropist George Eastman, of Eastman Kodak fame.

My mom followed Fleming's career with great interest, and would be very proud of this principled stand.

Possible 6 degrees of separation story - my mom's raison d'etre in her school nursing career was age appropriate sex education, so it is entirely possible that Ms. Fleming would have heard one of my mom's enlightened "birds and bees" classes while a middle school student.

[choie]

9. Due to a scheduling conflict?

I'm assuming she and her management team is using that as an excuse being they fear being sued. At least I hope so.

[purr-rat beauty]

10. Honestly

Anyone with a sense of survival should gtfo of DC

with war looming due to TRUMP it is a massive target right now.

[Mysterian]

11. That's OK, they can book Ted Nugent instead

That's what the USA voted for!