An event at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., and the National Symphony Orchestra has been canceled, the choral group said.
It's the latest performance that has been canceled since President Donald Trump purged the arts organization's Board of Trustees and appointed himself its chairman this month.
The concert was set to take place in late May to kick off national Pride Month celebrations as Washington prepares to host the WorldPride 2025 festival. The performance was removed from the center’s programming schedule and replaced with a National Symphony Orchestra rendition of “The Wizard of Oz” movie score.
“We are deeply disappointed with the news that our upcoming Pride performance with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) has been canceled,” the choral group said in a statement Tuesday on Instagram. The chorus was planning to debut a pride piece titled “A Peacock Among Pigeons,” it said, saying it had been excited to collaborate with the orchestra on the national stage.
“We believe in the power of music to educate and uplift, to foster love, understanding, and community, and we regret that this opportunity has been taken away,” the chorus said in the statement amid an outpouring of reactions to the cancellation from choral members and the arts community,
National Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Jean Davidson said in a statement that the decision to postpone the performance was made before Trump took over as chairman.
“Before the leadership transition at the Kennedy Center, we made the decision to postpone Peacock Among Pigeons due to financial and scheduling factors,” Davidson said. “We chose to replace it with The Wizard of Oz, another suitable program for World PRIDE participation.”
Davidson said that “program changes are a common practice,” saying leadership was “unable to announce the replacement program until we had secured the rights to present it, but in the interest of transparency, we removed the original program from the website to prevent further ticket sales.”
The chorus said it will still perform “A Peacock Among Pigeons” during its upcoming Choral Festival as part of the WorldPride 2025 tour in an effort to “seek spaces where our voices, our stories, and our music can be heard,” according to the statement.
The Gay Men’s Chorus, founded in 1981 and now in its 38th season, shares a storied history with both the Kennedy Center and the White House. The group, which describes itself as the country's first openly gay men's chorus, has performed at President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration and at multiple Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies.
Davidson, who assumed the chief leadership role of the National Symphony Orchestra in 2023, said the performance was canceled because of financial and scheduling factors and not by management changes. She did not indicate any plans to reschedule "A Peacock Among Pigeons" at Washington’s performing arts center.
Trump ousted the center’s longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter, and board chairman, David M. Rubenstein, along with several other Biden-era appointees, including former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this month.
The center’s president, chairman and board members were fired because they did not share Trump’s vision for “a golden age in arts and culture,” Trump said on Truth Social, indicating he wanted to end programming that included drag shows and what he called “Anti-American propaganda.”
Trump, breaking with the Kennedy Center’s long-standing tradition of a bipartisan board, has appointed his longtime loyalist Richard Grenell as interim executive director and named himself chairman of the board of trustees. Grenell, who as acting director of national intelligence became the first openly gay Cabinet member during Trump's first term, currently serves as envoy for special missions.
“It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!” Trump posted on Truth Social last week.
The abrupt changes to the Kennedy Center’s leadership have prompted a series of resignations and performance cancellations from artists, including actor and writer Issa Rae, who announced her decision to cancel her sold-out show scheduled for March last week.
Thanking fans for their support, Rae said on Instagram that she could not proceed with the event “due to what I believe is an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums.”
Ben Folds, an activist and musician who was the artistic adviser for the National Symphony Orchestra, announced his decision to relinquish the coveted role last week, citing “developments at the Kennedy Center.” Shonda Rhimes, the Obama-appointed Kennedy Center treasurer and Renée Fleming, a famed opera soprano who was the center’s artistic adviser at large, followed suit.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
