Yet another major performance has been removed from the Kennedy Center’s schedule. This time, a concert honoring Martin Luther King Jr. is relocating from the center after more than 20 years, as fallout continues for the Trump administration’s radical changes to the organization.
MLK Day concert leaves the Kennedy Center
For the first time in over 20 years, the Kennedy Center will not host the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day musical tribute, Let Freedom Ring! Celebration, held in Washington, D.C. The concert, produced by Georgetown University and featuring singers and choirs from D.C. area churches, will relocate to the Howard Theatre. Georgetown announced the new location in a statement posted on Dec. 17. The statement didn’t mention the Kennedy Center or provide a reason for the concert’s new location, and NPR reported that Georgetown has portrayed the move as a cost-saving measure.
Even if money was the ultimate motivation for the move, people involved in the concert have also referenced the ongoing political climate in relation to the change of venue. Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who President Donald Trump fired last year from his position as the Kennedy Center’s vice president and artistic director of social impact, expressed to NPR, “I would much rather that we all be spared the hypocrisy of celebrating a man who not only fought for justice, but who articulated the case for equity maybe better than anyone in American history … when the official position of this administration is an anti-equity position.”
Nolan Williams Jr., the concert’s longtime music composer, didn’t express regret for the venue change.
“You celebrate the time that was and the impact that has been and can never be erased. And then you move forward to the next thing,” Williams told NPR.
Kennedy Center controversies and artist cancellations
The loss of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day concert comes as the Kennedy Center has endured several changes and controversies under the Trump administration. Trump’s decisions to place loyalists in positions of leadership in the center and to micromanage the organization and its honors ceremony have alienated stars and artists from the center and its activities. The Trump-stacked board added his name to the Kennedy Center, a move decried by experts as illegal and condemned by Kennedy family members. Although Georgetown’s decision to move the Let Freedom Ring! Celebration preceded the name change announcement, it came amid the larger shakeups within the center and a wave of artist cancellations. Several acts pulled out of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve performances at the Kennedy Center, and many artists have already canceled their 2026 scheduled center performances.
Even with these other cancellations, the relocation of Georgetown’s MLK Day concert is one of the most high-profile losses for the center’s programming. The annual concert regularly brought major stars to the center. Last year’s concert featured actor Taye Diggs, Grammy-winning musician Esperanza Spalding, and Christopher Jackson, a Grammy and Emmy-winning and Tony-nominated actor, composer and songwriter most famous for playing George Washington in the hit musical Hamilton. This year’s concert features Grammy, Emmy and Academy Award-winning rapper Common.
The Kennedy Center still plans to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with the Missionary Kings of Harmony from the United House of Prayer for All People’s Anacostia congregation set to perform. This year’s program, however, will be vastly different from the star-studded celebrations that have marked MLK Day at the Kennedy Center for over 20 years.