Performers cancel concerts at Kennedy centre after Trump renaming

A PROMINENT jazz group and a dance company have cancelled shows at Washington’s premier performing arts centre to protest its renaming to include US President Donald Trump.

Family members of late president John F. Kennedy and Democratic politicians have already expressed outrage over the change this month at the Kennedy Centre rebaptising it the Trump-Kennedy Centre.

Now artists are voicing their disapproval. Several who were scheduled to perform end-of-year and 2026 shows at the centre have pulled out.

The Cookers, a veteran jazz ensemble, voiced “deep regret” they would not be performing on New Year’s Eve as planned.

“Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice,” the group said in a statement that did not give a reason for the cancellation.

But the band’s drummer, Billy Hart, told The New York Times that the centre’s name change had “evidently” played a role in their decision.

Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed president of the arts centre, denounced the artists canceling shows and said they “were booked by the previous far left leadership.”

“Boycotting the Arts to show you support the Arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” he wrote on X late Monday.

Late last week, Grenell accused another jazz artist, Chuck Redd, of a “political stunt” and said the center would be seeking US$1 million in damages after the musician cancelled a performance he hosts there annually on Christmas Eve, according to a copy of a letter from Grenell seen by AFP.

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A New York dance company, Doug Varone and Dancers, withdrew from a performance scheduled for April. They posted on Instagram Monday, “With the latest act of Donald J. Trump renaming the Center after himself, we can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”

And last week, folk singer Kristy Lee announced on social media that she was cancelling a Jan 14 performance as “losing my integrity would cost me more than any pay cheque.”

Trump has stamped his mark on the Kennedy Centre since the start of his second term as part of an assault on cultural institutions that his administration has accused of being too left-wing.

A number of musicians and other artists had already pulled out of performing at the center after Trump named himself its chairman and replaced most of its board with people loyal to him.

The new management of the centre has cut drag shows and events celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, and it has hosted conferences for the religious right and invited more Christian artists.

According to US media reports, ticket sales have declined since the new board of directors took over. AFP