Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez to perform at Biden’s inauguration

Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez will lend their voices to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration next week, performing when he officially becomes the 46th president of the United States, Biden's Presidential Inaugural Committee announced Thursday morning.

The announcement detailing participants in the 59th inaugural swearing-In ceremony 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.

Gaga, who appeared on the campaign trail with Biden during the 2020 election and worked with the then-vice president on his "It's on Us" campaign to combat campus sexual assault, will perform the national anthem when Biden is sworn in, the committee announced.

Lopez, who endorsed Biden, and took part in a virtual chat with the president-elect during the campaign, is also slated to give a musical performance at the event.

Biden's ceremony will begin with an invocation from Father Leo J. O'Donovan, who served as the 44th president of Georgetown University, and is a longtime friend of Biden and his family, and also feature a poetry reading by Amanda Gorman, who was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate in the U.S. in 2017.

Biden's inauguration will also feature a tie to the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), a union that has long supported Biden, and was the first to endorse him in the 2020 race.