WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of the Kennedy Center on Friday fiercely criticized a musician’s sudden choice to cancel a Christmas Eve efficiency on the venue after the White House introduced that President Donald Trump’s identify can be added to the ability.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” the venue’s president, Richard Grenell, wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd that was shared with The Associated Press.
In the letter, Grenell stated he would search $1 million in damages “for this political stunt.”
Redd didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
A drummer and vibraphone participant, Redd has presided over vacation “Jazz Jams” on the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts. In an e mail Wednesday to The Associated Press, Redd stated he pulled out of the live performance within the wake of the renaming.
“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd stated.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress handed a regulation the next yr naming the middle as a dwelling memorial to him.
According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board permitted the renaming, which students have stated violates the regulation. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to take away Trump’s identify from the constructing as soon as he leaves workplace, and former House historian Ray Smock is amongst those that say any adjustments must be permitted by Congress.
The regulation explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the middle right into a memorial to anybody else, and from placing one other particular person’s identify on the constructing’s exterior.
Associated Press author Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kennedy-center-canceled-concert-jazz_n_694f0c4fe4b0b9ab57f1eca8