Watch St. Vincent, Cyndi Lauper, Kelly Clarkson, & More Perform At Kennedy Center Honors
The Kennedy Center Honors program aired on television last night, though it was filmed earlier this month, and the 2018 recipients of the title included Reba McEntire, Philip Glass, Cher, Wayne Shorter, and the creative team behind Hamilton, which includes Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, Alex Lacamoire, and Andy Blankenbuehler. A number of famous people were on-hand to pay tribute to the careers of each of the honorees.
Kelly Clarkson opened the show by covering “Fancy,” McEntire’s popular cover of the Bobbie Gentry song. Kristin Chenoweth also did Annie Get Your Gun’s “Doin What Comes Naturally.”
A lot of people turned out for Philip Glass: St. Vincent showed up to perform “Osamu’s Theme” with violinist Jennifer Koh; Paul Simon took the stage to honor the composer, as did Angélique Kidjo; Jon Batiste also performed the opener from Glassworks, and S. Epatha Merkerson did “Knee Play 5.” The Philip Glass Ensemble and the Washington Chorus also performed as Glass looked on.
Esparanza Spalding appeared to perform Shorter’s “Endangered Species” and “Elegant People,” and Cyndi Lauper and Adam Lambert did Cher’s “I Got You Babe.”
Watch videos of all the performances below, in the order that they were mentioned above.