Kennedy Center seeks $1 million from performer who canceled show
The president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts sent a musician a letter demanding $1 million after he decided to cancel a Christmas Eve performance. Chuck Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player, pulled out of the annual holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center days after its board announced it voted rename it to the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”
In a letter first obtained by The Associated Press, the venue’s president, Richard Grenell, said Redd’s decision to withdraw from the concert ” is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution.”
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” Grenell said. “This institution remains dedicated to excellence and accessibility for generations to come, and we will not yield to the pressure tactics being directed at us from political performers on our stages. True artists perform for everyone regardless of the political affiliation of audience members.”
The New York Times received a copy of the letter as well. Redd did not immediately response to requests for comment from the publications but told the AP earlier this week that he chose to cancel after seeing the name change on the Kennedy Center website, “and then hours later on the building.”
He said that the event has been a “very popular holiday tradition” and that it often includes at least one student musician.
“One of the many reasons that it was very sad to have had to cancel,” he said in his statement to the AP.
Kennedy Center name change
The board of the John F. Kennedy Center, which was picked by U.S. President Donald Trump, voted to change the name of the venue in what it said was a unanimous decision. They center put Trump’s name on the board shortly after.
“The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction,” Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, said in an email to The Washington Post at the time.
Congress named the performing arts center after Kennedy in 1964, one year after the former president’s assassination. Scholars and attorneys said that changing the name would require further congressional approval.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, sued the Kennedy Center’s board and President Donald Trump. In her lawsuit, she, too, argued that the name change can only be made official by an act of Congress.
“This is a flagrant violation of the rule of law, and it flies in the face of our constitutional order,” Beatty’s complaint states.
Renaming undermines the center’s purpose as a “living memorial” to Kennedy as well, the lawsuit said. In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Trump reshaped the board before the vote by removing independent trustees and replacing them with political allies.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
