Michael M. Kaiser is responsible for the artistic programming and financial health of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Under Kaiser, the nation's center for the performing arts has increased its broad educational efforts and established cross-disciplinary programming with opera, theater, symphony, and dance. He has established an institute for arts management and arranged for 10 annual visits from both the ballet and opera companies of St. Petersburg, Russia’s Kirov/Mariinsky Theater, which began in 2002. The unprecedented Sondheim Celebration, with six productions of Stephen Sondheim’s works during the summer of 2002, the exclusive United States presentation of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera on a single stage, and a five-year annual commitment of visits from London’s Royal Shakespeare Company are among Kaiser’s programs. He planned multidisciplinary festivals celebrating composer P.I. Tchaikovsky (winter 2003), the arts of France (winter and spring 2003), and a festival presenting works of playwright Tennessee Williams (summer 2004).

Kaiser also works closely with the National Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Leonard Slatkin and its Board of Directors. He arranged, in conjunction with the U.S. State Department, the historic concert in December of 2003 at the Kennedy Center of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra with the National Symphony Orchestra.