WASHINGTON \u2014 The president of the Kennedy Center on Friday fiercely criticized a musician\u2019s sudden decision to cancel a Christmas Eve performance at the venue after the White House announced that President Donald Trump\u2019s name would be added to the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour decision to withdraw at the last moment \u2014 explicitly in response to the Center\u2019s recent renaming, which honors President Trump\u2019s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure \u2014 is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,\u201d the venue\u2019s president, Richard Grenell, wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd that was shared with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
In the letter, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages \u201cfor this political stunt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
A drummer and vibraphone player, Redd has presided over holiday \u201cJazz Jams\u201d at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William \u201cKeter\u201d Betts. In an email Wednesday to The Associated Press, Redd said he pulled out of the concert in the wake of the renaming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,\u201d Redd said.<\/p>\n
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him.<\/p>\n
According to the White House, Trump\u2019s handpicked board approved the renaming, which scholars have said violates the law. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump\u2019s name from the building once he leaves office, and former House historian Ray Smock is among those who say any changes would have to be approved by Congress.<\/p>\n
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person\u2019s name on the building\u2019s exterior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The president of the Kennedy Center on Friday fiercely criticized a musician\u2019s sudden decision to cancel…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":474143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,213462,69,171,31760,213461,21272,19917,67,132,68,5223,214931],"class_list":{"0":"post-474142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-chuck-redd","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-kennedy-center","13":"tag-kerry-kennedy","14":"tag-musician","15":"tag-richard-grenell","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-white-house","20":"tag-william-keter-betts"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115789360182421417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}