In a move that shifts a canceled national premiere into a high-profile fundraiser, robert de niro will appear at Carnegie Hall to recite excerpts from Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln, ” as part of a Tibet House US benefit on Tuesday night (ET). The performance follows Glass’s decision to call off a planned Kennedy Center premiere in protest of President Donald Trump’s ouster of the center’s leadership, turning a musical work rooted in Abraham Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address into an explicit act of cultural commentary.
Robert De Niro joins Philip Glass’s “Lincoln” at Carnegie Hall
The Carnegie Hall engagement pairs a major actor with a contemporary composer at an event organized by Tibet House US, with Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson serving as the evening’s artistic directors. Glass’s Symphony No. 15, titled “Lincoln, ” draws in part on Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, an early speech that criticized mob violence and warned of its dangers to democratic life. In a public statement, Glass said, “I am so pleased Robert De Niro is going to read the Lincoln speech. He is absolutely the right person. ” The reading will take place during a benefit set for Tuesday night (ET).
Why the Kennedy Center premiere was canceled
Glass announced in January that he had called off the Kennedy Center premiere of the symphony in protest of President Donald Trump’s ouster of the center’s leadership. The cancellation sits alongside a broader artist exodus: Renée Fleming, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bela Fleck are among those who have canceled Kennedy Center events. The president has renamed the facility the Trump Kennedy Center, a change scholars have noted can only be enacted by Congress. The president also announced that the facility will be shut down in July for construction, a project he expects to last for two years.
Expert perspectives
Philip Glass, identified in materials as the composer of Symphony No. 15, framed the Carnegie Hall reading as an appropriate home for Lincoln’s warning about violence. Glass’s endorsement of Robert De Niro underscores the intentional pairing of actor and text: “I am so pleased Robert De Niro is going to read the Lincoln speech. He is absolutely the right person. ” Laurie Anderson is listed alongside Glass as an artistic director for the evening, signaling a curatorial intent that blends music, spoken word and public witness.
The benefit context—organized by a nonprofit educational institution, Tibet House US—places the performance inside philanthropic and cultural circuits rather than a traditional institutional premiere. That shift reflects how artists and organizers are adapting when scheduled institutional presentations break down. For some performers, moving a work to a benefit or alternative venue is both a way to preserve an artistic project and to make an explicit statement about institutional governance and cultural stewardship.
Public-facing actions surrounding Symphony No. 15 have layered symbolism onto the work. The symphony’s textual anchor, the 1838 Lyceum Address, is itself a document warning against mob rule and incivility; staging excerpts in a benefit setting recasts those themes as a response to current institutional conflict.
The cast of artists who withdrew from the Kennedy Center illustrates the ripple effects: prominent names have pulled events, and the canceled premiere has continued to reverberate in programming and fundraising decisions. Moving the symphony excerpts to Carnegie Hall for a Tibet House US benefit reframes what began as a scheduled institutional premiere into an explicitly civic and protest-laced cultural moment.
Will robert de niro’s reading at Carnegie Hall change the tenor of debate about artistic protest, institutional accountability and the boundaries between art and politics? The event will be watched both as a performance and as a signal of how artists, institutions and audiences navigate contested public space.
