Just five days after Philip Glass, one of the world’s most famous and revered living composers, canceled the world premiere of his “Lincoln” symphony at the Kennedy Center, President Trump announced he would close the nation’s premier arts center for two years for major renovations.
The arts world — already spinning from the sweeping changes to the venue that began almost a year ago when Trump fired the board and installed himself as chairman — was gobsmacked by the shocking news. And although the president said in a social media post that the closure was about building a “World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before,” speculation abounded that the unexpected move was more about saving face.
Ticket sales had been plummeting since Trump’s takeover and high-profile artists continued to jump ship, a trend that accelerated late last year after the board voted to rename the building the Trump Kennedy center.
Embarrassment could have been a factor in the rash decision, but Trump is not a man who appears to be afflicted by that particular emotion, which takes its cue from a certain amount of self-awareness and humility. For this reason, I am venturing another guess about the president’s motive for pulling the rug out from under the storied venue: retribution.
If ungrateful artists don’t want to play at the Kennedy Center, the Kennedy Center will no longer be around for them to use. Take that.
Since assuming office for the second time last January, exacting revenge on his perceived enemies has been Trump’s main modus operandi. It has animated many of his most stunning decisions, including his early executive orders stripping security clearance and federal court access from law firms who represented his perceived enemies; his many lawsuits against media operations that displeased him; his freezing of federal funding for universities that refused to do his bidding; his indictment of former FBI director James Comey and the investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The list goes on and on.
The Kennedy Center was supposed to mark a vainglorious Trump’s ascendance to the pinnacle of cultural cachet, but instead the culturati shunned and humiliated him — refusing to join his party. New York City high society did the same before he was president. It was a pattern both familiar and painful. So Trump, like the man-child he is, took his ball and went home.
In this case, that ball happens to be the complex that serves as the symbolic seat of the nation’s vibrant, messy, questioning, deeply political and hugely alive arts and culture scene. To lose access to this beating heart — and all that it represents — is a grievous loss for our national identity. Its meaning was enshrined in President Kennedy’s vision for the center, and written on its walls, as the realization of a country, “which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.”
Like many of Trump’s controversial construction projects, the wholesale re-imagining of the Kennedy Center will likely face immediate and lengthy pushback in court. This could mean that it never gets done, and the center remains closed indefinitely. Or we could wake up tomorrow to news that bulldozers have arrived onsite and have begun the process of razing architect Edward Durell Stone’s historic 1971 building — as happened with the East Wing of the White House.
Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, wrote in an email that the renovations would include, “Repairing and, where necessary, replacing elements on the exterior of the building to ensure the long-term preservation and integrity of the structure,” as well as getting the building up to code and making fixes to the center’s “HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire protection, vertical transportation systems, and technical stage systems,” as well as improving parking. She also wrote that the center, which hosts 2 million visitors annually, is working closely with the National Symphony Orchestra, and will “continue to support them with funding at the same level as recent years.”
Nonetheless, the most frightening thing about this new era under Trump is that anything is possible, and we sometimes don’t know exactly what that means until it is far too late.
I’m Arts Editor Jessica Gelt, and here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
On our radar
Yunchan Lim performs next weekend with the L.A. Philharmonic.
(LA Phil)
Dudamel Conducts Beethoven and Lorenz
Playwright Jeremy O. Harris reconceptualizes Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play “Egmont,” with narration by actor Cate Blanchett and maestro Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Beethoven’s complete incidental music. The evening begins with the world premiere of Ricardo Lorenz’s “Humboldt’s Nature,” inspired by the South American travels of philosopher and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, followed by 2022 Van Cliburn winner Yunchan Lim performing Robert Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54.”
8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m. Feb. 13; 8 p.m. Feb. 14; 2 p.m. Feb. 15. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com/events
A scan of the face Nes-Hor, an ancient Egyptian priest whose mummy is featured in “Mummies of the World: The Exhibition” at the California ScienceCenter.
(California ScienceCenter)
Mummies of the World
The scientific study of naturally and intentionally preserved corpses illuminates the lives of ancient people, past cultures and the present in this exhibition that includes more than 30 real-life mummies.
10 a.m.-5 p.m., through Sept. 7. California ScienceCenter, 700 Exposition Park Drive. californiasciencecenter.org
Ann Noble as “Richard III” at A Noise Within.
(Daniel Reichert)
Richard lll
Guillermo Cienfuegos directs this fast-paced reinterpretation of William Shakespeare’s history play, reset in 1970s Britain with Ann Noble in the title role as one of the most fascinating villains ever.
Sunday through March 8. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
The Abduction from the Seraglio
Pacific Opera Project performs its “Star Trek”-themed parody of Mozart’s in L.A. for the first time in a decade.
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 3 p.m. Sunday. Thorne Auditorium, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road. pacificoperaproject.com
Thomas Adès and Yuja Wang
Composer Adès leads the L.A. Phil in Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini , Op. 32,” the U.S. premiere of William Marsey’s “Man With Limp Wrist” and Adès own work “Aquifer”; and pianist Wang performs Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16.”
8 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Rickie Lee Jones performs Friday and Saturday at the Wallis.
(Amy Harris / invision/ap)
Rickie Lee Jones
The singer, musician and songwriter brings her genre-defying vocals, crisscrossing rock, R&B, pop, soul and jazz, to the Wallis for two shows.
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Laguna Beach Music Festival
Violinist Stefan Jackiw is joined by Kevin Ahfat on piano, the Parker Quartet and story artist Xai Yaj for a program featuring Beethoven and Janáček on Friday; and on Saturday, Jackiw, Ahfat and the Parker Quartet, along with clarinetist Yoonah Kim and musicians from the Colburn School perform works by American composers Florence Price, Leonard Bernstein, Eric Nathan and Aaron Copland, conducted by Steven Schick.
8 p.m. Friday; 7 p.m. Saturday. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. philharmonicsociety.org
SATURDAY
asses.masses
Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim’s immersive, eight-hour video game experience — with intermissions, refreshments and a meal included — involves unemployed donkeys demanding that humans surrender their machines and give the animals back their jobs.
1 p.m. Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 to 2026
The exhibition examines Chicana/o/x lens-based image-making through 150 works by nearly 50 artists.
Through Sept. 6. The Cheech, 3581 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside; through July 5. Riverside Art Museum, 3425 Mission Inn Ave. riversideartmuseum.org
Katie Holmes stars in “Hedda Gabler” at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.
(Jan Welters)
Hedda Gabler
Katie Holmes headlines this new version of Henrik Ibsen’s classic drama adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson and directed by Barry Edelstein.
Through March 15. Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego. theoldglobe.org
Just Me – Pico Union
This concert by the award-winning ensemble Tonality, led by founder and Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake, honors and shares the stories of transgender and non-binary individuals.
7 p.m. Saturday. The Pico Union Project, 1153 Valencia St., Los Angeles. ourtonality.org
Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive
The stage-and-screen star, accompanied by Adam Ben-David on piano, performs Broadway and classic American tunes written by Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter and Harry Chapin.
8 p.m. Saturday. Carpenter Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org
The orchestral collective Wild Up performs Saturday at the Broad.
(Ian Byers-Gamber)
Wild Up
The orchestral collective presents “The Great Learning, Paragraphs 2 and 7” by Cornelius Cardew, a community collaboration with 30 pre-appointed non-musicians.
8 and 10 p.m. Saturday. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org
SUNDAY
From Fugue to Fantasia: Debussy, Mozart, and More
Colburn alum and violinist Blake Pouliot is joined by Jonathan Brown on viola and percussionist Matthew Howard.
4 p.m. Sunday. Thayer Hall, Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. colburnschool.edu
MONDAY
American International Paderewski Piano Competition
Twenty-five young professional pianists vie for a $10,000 grand prize named for Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a celebrated European concert pianist and composer, who helped lead Poland’s battle for independence after World War I and later served as the nation’s prime minister.
1 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; 11 a.m. Feb. 13 and 5 p.m. Feb. 14. Murphy Recital Hall, Loyola Marymount University, 1955 Ignatian Circle. paderewskimusicsociety.org
Right in the Eye
Jean-François Alcoléa, Fabrice Favriou and Thomas Desmartis play more than 50 instruments in this live concert, designed by Alcoléa, that serves as a soundtrack for 12 silent shorts by pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès.
7 p.m. Monday. USC Cinematic Arts, Norris Cinema Theatre at the Frank Sinatra Hall, 3507 Trousdale Parkway. https://cinema.usc.edu/events/event.cfm?id=72935
TUESDAY
House on Fire
The new music trio of Andrew Anderson, Wells Leng and Richard An perform a program of works for pianos, keyboards and other instruments by Tristan Perich, Erin Rogers, Matthias Kranebitter, Yifeng Yvonne Yuan, Erich Barganier, and group members An and Leng
8 p.m. Tuesday. 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd. pianospheres.org
sex, lies and videotape
The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. presents a screening of Steven Soderbergh’s breakout 1989 indie starring James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo with Giacomo in conversation with critic Lael Loewenstein.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. egyptiantheatre.com
WEDNESDAY
Amadeus
A new production of Peter Shaffer’s music-infused drama stars Jefferson Mays as Salieri, Sam Clemmett as Mozart and Lauren Worsham as Constanze, with Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak directing. The Pasadena Conservatory of Music will offer 10-minute Micro Mozart Concerts before every performance
Wednesday through March 8. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molina Ave. pasadenaplayhouse.org
Yefim Bronfman
The pianist performs works by Schumann, Brahms, Debussy and Beethoven in a Colburn Celebrity Recital.
8 p.m. Wednesday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Here Lies Love
Snehal Desai directs an all-new production of the musical about former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos, with concept, music and lyrics by David Byrne and music by Fatboy Slim and choreography by William Carlos Angulo.
Through March 22. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
THURSDAY
Intersect Palm Springs Arts + Design Fair
Collectors, designers and curators convene in the Coachella Valley to present new work and share ideas with one another and the public.
4-6 p.m. VIP only and 6-8 p.m.Thursday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Feb. 13-15; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. ; Feb. 16. Palm Springs Convention Center, 277 N. Avenida Caballeros. intersectpalmsprings.com
Culture news and the SoCal scene
More on the Kennedy Center
Times classical music critic Mark Swed weighed in on the Kennedy Center’s closure with a deeply knowledgeable piece about the history of the storied venue, and how it has always been a place marked, and sometimes marred, by politics — just never in this way. “The Kennedy Center proved political from Day 1. Leonard Bernstein was commissioned to write a theatrical piece for the center’s opening in 1971, which turned out to be an irreverent ‘Mass’ — musically, liturgically, culturally and, most assuredly, politically. Most of all it was an unmistakable protest against the Vietnam War. In his own protest, President Nixon stayed home,” Swed writes.
And here’s my breaking news story about Trump’s announced closure of the venue.
Many nights at the opera
Meanwhile, arts and entertainment writer Malia Mendez penned a lovely piece announcing L.A. Opera’s 2026-27 season — the first under its new music director, Domingo Hindoyan, who takes over after longtime leader James Conlon steps down. Fun fact: Hindoyan and soon-to-depart Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel have been friends since their days together in Venezuela’s world-renowned youth orchestra El Sistema.
Mark your calendar
On Thursday, Malia scored another exclusive, reporting on LACMA’s announcement that the David Geffen Galleries, the pinnacle of a two-decade campus transformation, will officially open April 19. Museum members will have two weeks of priority access to the galleries, with general admission beginning May 4. It was nearly a decade ago that business magnate David Geffen made a record-high $150-million donation toward the construction of a new museum building to be designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The $720-million structure will serve as the new home for LACMA’s permanent collection with 90 exhibition galleries organized thematically rather than by medium or chronology. “It’s kind of a worldview,” LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan told The Times. “It’s big enough that it can hold the world.”
Will Swenson stars as “Sweeney Todd” at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts.
(Jason Niedle / TETHOS)
A bloody good time
Comedian, musical theater star and “Seinfeld” alum Jason Alexander directed a revival of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, and Times theater critic Charles McNulty was there to catch it. “Alexander’s production of ‘Sweeney Todd’ has breadth and heft, but also intimacy and lightness,” McNulty writes in his review.
Rebuilding Altadena
Times contributor Sam Lubell wrote a comprehensive piece about the rebuilding of Altadena’s community spaces and parks in the wake of the Eaton fire, a task that has attracted the talent and attention of Disney Imagineers and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban.
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New Hammer hires
Exciting staffing news arrives from the Hammer Museum at UCLA, which announced two new leadership appointments: Michael Wellen has been named the museum’s new chief curator; and Regan Pro is being brought on in the newly created role of chief of learning, engagement, and research, taking the lead on public programs and community partnerships, as well as K-12, family, and university initiatives. Both new hires will report to museum director Zoë Ryan. Wellen arrives from London’s Tate Modern where he is currently senior curator of international art; and Pro is a longtime arts leader and educator who most recently served as the deputy director of public programs and social impact at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
Alexander Shelley has been named music director of Pacific Symphony.
(Curtis Perry)
Taking the baton
Pacific Symphony announced its 2026-27 Classical Series, marking the orchestra’s 48th season, and its first under the leadership of its new artistic and music director, Alexander Shelley. The season’s two opening programs will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, and the 40th anniversary of Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The opening night celebration in September features violinist Joshua Bell, after which Shelley will guide the season through a series of classic works, beginning with Mahler’s Second Symphony. A season highlight will be a program called America 250, which celebrates the country’s semiquincentennial and includes work by Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. Also on the calendar: John Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, “Nixon in China,” and a two-week Beethoven Revolution Festival.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Do you want to get so close to an elephant that you can see his or her eyelashes? I do. I really do.
