Kennedy Center director Richard Grenell, a Donald Trump appointee, said the cultural institution will sue musician Chuck Redd for $1 million after he canceled the traditional Christmas Eve free jazz concert at the last minute. Redd’s decision was a protest against the renaming of the cultural center, which was renamed the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Grenell called Redd’s attitude “political intolerance” that caused significant harm to a nonprofit arts institution. At X, the director of the institute also accuses the left of boycotting the arts in opposition to Trump and that “the arts are for everyone”.
Chuck Redd, who has hosted the Kennedy Center’s annual jazz concert since 2006, told The Associated Press that he canceled the event after seeing the institution’s new name on the official website and on the building’s facade.
The inclusion of Trump’s name came on the 19th of this month, a day after the White House announced that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, made up primarily of Trump nominees, had unanimously approved the change to the “Trump Kennedy Center.” Legal experts interviewed by the American press claim that this name change is illegal, since a 1964 federal law prohibits the addition of any other name to the building.
Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty filed a lawsuit to remove Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, arguing that only Congress can officially change the institution’s name.
Chuck Redd, 67, is an internationally renowned jazz musician, with more than 80 recordings and stints with major groups and institutions, such as the Charlie Byrd Trio and the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. The controversy comes amid a political restructuring of the Kennedy Center by the Trump administration, which included the firing of the former president, changing board members and the Republican’s criticism of what he called the institution’s “woke” programming.
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