Lady Gaga will sing the National Anthem at President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week, with Jennifer Lopez also slated to perform, Biden’s inaugural committee announced Thursday. (Politico)
Other participants will include Leo J. O’Donovan, a Jesuit priest and former Georgetown University president who will lead the invocation, and Andrea Hall, the first Black woman to be named captain with the South Fulton Fire and Rescue Department in Georgia, who will lead the Pledge of Allegiance. (NPR)
There will be a poetry reading from Amanda Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, and the benediction will be given by the Rev. Silvester Beaman of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Del. (L.A. Times)
The announcement represents one of the more traditional aspects of Biden’s inauguration, which has been largely altered amid the Covid-19 pandemic to accommodate an at-home audience, and faces new concerns over security in the wake of riots at the U.S. Capitol last week that left five dead. (ABC News)
At President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the anthem was performed by 16-year-old singer Jackie Evancho. A number of top artists declined the opportunity to perform at the festivities, and one Broadway star, Jennifer Holliday, even said she’d received death threats before she pulled out of her planned appearance. (AP)