Van Cliburn performs Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 in CSharp Minor for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower during "An American Pageant of the Arts," on November 29, 1962. The purpose of the event was to raise funds for the National Cultural Center, begun under Eisenhower's administration and encouraged under Kennedy's.

Two months after President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Congress passed and President Johnson signed into law legislation renaming the National Cultural Center as a "living memorial" to John F. Kennedy.

Watch the full pageant with Bob Newhart, Harry Belafonte, YoYo Ma, Danny Kaye, Marian Anderson, Robert Frost, Maria Tallchief, Andre Previn, and many more:
   • "An American Pageant of the Arts" wit...  

Learn more about the Kennedy Center's history:
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Van Cliburn was an American pianist who, at the age of 23, achieved worldwide recognition when he won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 (during the Cold War). Cliburn's mother, a piano teacher and an accomplished pianist in her own right, discovered him playing at age three, mimicking one of her students and arranged for him to start taking lessons. Cliburn developed a rich, round tone and a singingvoicelike phrasing, having been taught from the start to sing each piece. Cliburn toured domestically and overseas. In 2001, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors. He played for royalty, heads of state, and every US president from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama.

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