US marine band forced to cancel concert with students of colour after Trump Kennedy Center takeover

20 March 2025, 11:05 | Updated: 20 March 2025, 11:15

The concert would have featured star young musicians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The United States Marine Band was forced to cancel a concert with students of colour following President Donald Trump’s decision to ban diversity programmes within the federal government and military.

The concert, due to take place this May, was to feature top pre-college musicians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who had been auditioned by Equity Arc, a nonprofit based in Chicago which connects students of colour with music mentors and opportunities.

The group of marines and young musicians were programmed to perform Nobles of the Mystic Shrine by American composer John Philip Sousa, who directed the band in the late 19th century.

However, on 19 February, Stanford Thompson, the executive director of Equity Arc, received an email from the Marine Band’s commanding officer saying the performance would have to be cancelled.

The email said: “As I mentioned to you earlier today, I received word from high headquarters (4-star) that we are to cancel this initiative in accordance with ‘Executive order, ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing’.

“As long as the Executive Order is in place, we will not be able to reschedule,” the email continued. “Again I am really sorry to be the bearer of this news.”

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SOUSA Semper Fidelis - "The President's Own" US Marine Band

Thompson said when he received the email his “first thought was hopelessness and heartbreak”.

In 2022, the band had called Thompson to ask how they could reach out to musicians of colour.

He said: “We identified this high school age, this pre-college age where a lot of musicians of color drop off.

“We came up with the idea of, ‘Can we bring a select group that we would audition through a competitive process to Washington to be able to spend a couple of days with the band?’”

In 2024, 2.3% of American orchestra musicians were Black, 4.6% were Hispanic, 11.7% were Asian, 0.5% were American Indian, and 78.6% were White, according to research by The League of American Orchestras.

18-year-old Rishab Jain was one of the young musicians due to perform.

He expressed his dismay, stating, “We are a land that prides itself on being the land of the free, the home of the brave... but we need different perspectives, we need to hear how others think.”

Read more: How the marching band became a staple of American music education

Jain, who is of Indian descent and has been accepted into Harvard University, emphasised the importance of art and music in fostering understanding and inclusion.

“If we are a society that’s oppressing art, we are a society that is afraid of what it might reveal about itself,” he said.

However, Equity Arc still flew the students to Washington, booked a concert hall and reached out to Marine Band retirees to volunteer to join the young musicians to perform Shostakovich’s Gallop.

John Abbracciamento, a retired Marine Band trumpeter, answered the call-out and joined the group in Washington.

“I challenge anyone, literally anyone, to come to me and say that having this concert does damage to the United States”, he said.

"It doesn’t: it brings out the best of us.”

Julie Angelis Boehler, who retired after 23 years as the timpanist of the U.S. Army Band, said “We need all of this, not just musically. Athletically, academically, we need diversity, equity, and inclusion.”