Monday, June 1 at David Geffen Hall

New York, NY (May 13, 2026) - Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) announced today that global music superstar and EGOT-winner John Legend will perform at their 2026 Summer Gala, which will recognize previously-announced honorees Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Co-President Andreas C. Dracopoulos and groundbreaking dancer, author, and advocate Misty Copeland.

 

The event will take place Monday, June 1 at David Geffen Hall, helping kick off the beloved Summer for the City festival, which opens across the Lincoln Center campus on June 10.

 

Concert-only tickets for the Summer Gala will go on sale to Friends of Lincoln Center on Wednesday, May 13 at Noon ET, and to the general public on Friday, May 15 at Noon ET. Learn more at LincolnCenter.org.

 

Copeland will receive the inaugural Lincoln Center Luminary Award, established to recognize leading artists who have demonstrated both extraordinary talent on stage, and civic vision: artists who create, convene, and care for communities. The award will be presented with remarks from Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem.

 

As the event ushers in the summer season, it also provides critical support for Summer for the City — Lincoln Center’s premiere free arts festival, attended by more than 1.6 million visitors since its launch in 2022. The Gala will also shine a light on the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Lincoln Center West Initiative, a project launched in 2023 to open up the Amsterdam Avenue side of Lincoln Center’s campus.  With welcoming entrances, public community gardens, and a world-class amphitheater, this Initiative reinforces Lincoln Center’s mission to make the arts accessible to all, expanding our collective imagination and creating connections and dialogue.

 

Imagery may be accessed here.

 

John Legend is an EGOT-winning, critically acclaimed, multiplatinum artist and producer who has garnered 13 Grammy® Awards, an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe® Award, a Tony® Award and four Emmy® Awards, among others. Legend has released eleven albums: Get Lifted (2004), Once Again (2006), Evolver (2008), Wake Up! (with The Roots) (2010), Love in the Future (2013), Darkness and Light (2016), A Legendary Christmas (2018), Bigger Love (2020), LEGEND (2022), LEGEND (Solo Piano Version)(2023) and My Favorite Dream (2024).  After releasing Get Lifted (20th Anniversary Edition) — an expanded reissue featuring new remixes and collaborations with Tems, Simi, Killer Mike and Lil Wayne — he launched a 2025 world tour bringing the acclaimed album back to the stage. In 2026, Legend returned to NBC's The Voice to coach Season 29.

 

Legend co-founded production company Get Lifted Film Co. and publishing imprint Get Lifted Books, home to the recent New York Times bestseller The Well-Educated Child by Dr. Deborah Kenny.  Legend also serves as a producer on Cats: The Jellicle Ball, which earned nine 2026 Tony Award nominations, and is currently in production on Imitation of Life, marking his first time composing a theatrical musical, set to premiere at The Shed this Fall.

 

In 2023, Legend launched Loved01, a luxurious and accessible unisex skincare brand, followed by Kismet in 2024, a premium dog lifestyle brand co-founded with Chrissy Teigen. As an activist, Legend established FREEAMERICA in 2015 to transform the conversation around criminal justice policies and end mass incarceration.

 

About Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland is a trailblazing dancer, author, and advocate, becoming the first Black woman promoted to Principal Dancer of the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in 2015. She is the author of Ballerina Body, The Wind at My Back, and the bestselling Life in Motion as well as the children’s books Firebird Waltz, Bunheads and its sequel, Black Ballerinas, and Letters to Misty. Misty is the recipient of the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts and an inductee into the Boys and Girls Club Alumni Hall of Fame. In 2015, she was named to Time magazine’s 100 list and was one of Glamour magazine’s “Women of the Year.” Throughout her career, Misty has always been passionate about giving back, and she launched the Misty Copeland Foundation in 2022.  Its signature program, BE BOLD, works to expand access, diversity, and inclusion in dance, especially ballet.

 

About Andreas C. Dracopoulos

Andreas C. Dracopoulos is Co-President of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), an international philanthropic organization that has supported more than 3,100 grantee-partners around the world aiming to achieve broad, lasting, and positive impact for society.

 

Andreas is a trustee of The Rockefeller University, NewYork-Presbyterian, and The Paley Center for Media in New York, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. He is also a Board of Advisors Trustee at the New York Public Library. At Johns Hopkins University, where he was a trustee from 2012 to 2024 and continues as Trustee Emeritus, Andreas is currently serving as Co-Chair of the SNF Agora Institute’s Board of Overseers and on the Berman Institute of Bioethics Advisory Board. He received Greece’s Grand Cross of the Order of Honor in 2018 and France’s rank of the Officer of the Legion of Honor in 2016.

 

About Lincoln Center  

Lincoln Center is a premier performing arts center and iconic civic cultural campus. A beacon for the arts in New York City and around the world, Lincoln Center believes the arts are fundamental to our humanity and should be accessible to all – connecting us to one another, expanding our individual and collective imaginations, and elevating our spirit. Opened in 1962, the 16-acre campus is home to eleven resident arts organizations dedicated to uplifting the role of art and artists in our society, providing a destination for global artistic voices, training the next generation of great artists, and creating unforgettable experiences for all New Yorkers: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Film at Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and School of American Ballet. Lincoln Center welcomes millions of people for thousands of performances each year, anchoring New York City’s legendary creative life and greatly impacting its civic and economic wellbeing.

 

About Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) is a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring the Lincoln Center campus is a destination that welcomes all—where every visitor, whether a native New Yorker or New Yorker for a day, can find inspiration, artistic innovation, and community in the creative achievements realized on campus. Year-round, we offer robust seasons of programming, representing a broad spectrum of performing arts disciplines and complementing the artistic and educational activities of the 10 fellow resident arts organizations with whom we share a home. LCPA presents hundreds of programs each year, offered primarily for free and Choose-What-You-Pay, helping ensure that the arts are at the center of civic life for all.

 

 

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We are grateful to our Board of Directors for their leadership and generous support

in making our work possible

 

Operation of Lincoln Center’s public plazas is supported in part with public funds

provided by the City of New York

 

Programs are made possible, in part, with public funds provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor, Mayor of the City of New York, the New York State Legislature and the New York City Council

 

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For more information, please contact:

Isabel Sinistore / Rosie Marinelli

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

[email protected] / [email protected]

 

APEX Public Relations

Shawn Purdy / Elyse Weissman / Alicia Mohr

[email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]

 

[NOTE] If you are interested in covering the Gala, please fill out the Press Credential Application HERE by Friday, May 22.