Eric Church will take The Gather Again tour to the nation’s capital this weekend (December 11-12), and while he’s there, he’ll make a stop at the White House. But it won’t be a sight-seeing trip.
Instead, Church is taking part in a PBS special titled In Performance at the White House: Spirit of the Season, where he’ll help the country celebrate Christmas in musical style.
Set to feature a long list of performers who will sing in some of the White House’s most famous rooms, the holiday TV special is meant to highlight the United States’ diverse cultural tapestry … and how the holidays help stitch it together. Church will be joined by Andrea Bocelli, Matteo Bocelli, Virginia Bocelli, Camila Cabello, Jonas Brothers, Norah Jones, Pentatonix, Billy Porter, Northwell Health Nurse Choir, Voices of Service and the United States Marine Band, and the show will be hosted by actress Jennifer Garner.
The hour-long program will premiere Tuesday, December 21, at 8 p.m. ET (and then later on the American Forces Network for service members overseas), as the stars perform in historic White House rooms — including the East Room, the State Dining Room and the Blue Room, home of the Official White House Christmas tree.
According to an press announcement, the In Performance at the White House series has been around since 1978 when the Carter administration kicked it off, and since then the nation’s most-famous home has hosted everyone from Justin Timberlake and B.B. King to Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss and more. Organizers now say the time was right to revive the series for the holidays, hoping to help citizens remember what we can be thankful for as the nation continues to battle the pandemic. And for Church, the honor will go beyond politics.
Back in 2020 when the country star won the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year, he famously called on his fellow musicians to embrace their role as patriotic unifiers, saying “You know what the win is? The win is we were all here tonight together as country music in person, live, not on zoom. It’s going to be music that brings us out of this. That is the one thing that is going to save the entire world. Politicians are about division, music is about unity. And I promise you, it’s going to take everyone in this room to unite.”