Inauguration: Bono, Beyonce and The Boss will perform in Sunday celebration on HBO

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A slew of A-list talent has signed on to kick off next week’s presidential inauguration festivities. The official organizing committee announced today that “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial,” which will air Sunday on HBO, will feature performances from the likes of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am and Stevie Wonder.

Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington will read historical passages at the 90-minute free event, which is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. EST on the Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Members of the public do not need tickets to attend. A spokesman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee said there will be a room for hundreds of thousands of people.

HBO will televise the celebration at 7 p.m. in each U.S. time zone, using an open signal, so it will be accessible to anyone with cable or satellite television.

‘This is a great opportunity to capture an historic event in a very meaningful setting,’ said producer and director Don Mischer, whose past credits include the Olympic ceremonies and Super Bowl halftime shows. ‘We will have the statue of Abraham Lincoln looking down on our stage and a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people lining the mall -- a tableau any director would relish.’

-- Matea Gold