Philip Glass Pulls His "Lincoln" Symphony to Protest Trump

By Ed Epstein

Washington, D.C.

Jan. 27, 2026

"Lincoln," a new symphony by 88-year-old American composer Philip Glass, won't have its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington as Glass joins a long line of artists to boycott the center in protest of President Donald Trump's renaming of the center for himself.

"Glass' Symphony No. 15," as it's formally named, draws its inspiration in good part on the words of young Abraham Lincoln's1838 Lyceum speech in Springfield, Ill. In that address, Lincoln warned of the dangers of mob rule and said that the greatest danger to America's young democracy would come from within, rather than from external enemies. Glass also drew inspiration from other words of Lincoln.

Several media outlets reported today that Glass  had sent a letter to the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra, which had commissioned the work, informing them of his decision. The New York Times was given a copy of the letter, in which Glass wrote: "“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony.”

The Washington Post quoted another passage of the letter, in which Glass wrote: "I feel an obligation to withdraw this symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership."

The NSO, which has called the Kennedy Center home since the complex opened in 1971, originally commissioned the new Glass work for a 2022 premiere, but Glass missed that deadline.

As he prepared his speech to Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Lincoln was affected by examples of mob rule, including several lynchings and the murder the year before of abolitionist and editor Elijah Lovejoy by a mob in Alton, Ill., along the Mississippi River.

In the speech Lincoln said that foreign forces could never conquer the U.S. But he warned, "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

"I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of courts."

In pulling out of the Kennedy Center, Glass joins a long list of artists who have left to protest Trump's taking control of the center last year and trying to rename it the "Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Critics say that only an act of Congress can change the center's name. The Washington National Opera recently said it is leaving the Kennedy Center, amid falling ticket sales and donations.

Soprano Renee Fleming and banjo virtuoso Bela Flak were others who recently cancelled on the center.

At the Lyceum, Lincoln also said: "Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor."

Among the many honors Glass has received was the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.

Image from the Library of Congress