NEW YORK (AP) — A jazz concert planned for Christmas Eve at the Kennedy Center, a holiday tradition dating back more than 20 years, has been canceled. The show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, says he called off the performance after the White House announced last week that President Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.
As of last Friday, the front of the building reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. According to the White House, the president’s select panel approved the decision, which scholars said violates the law. Trump had suggested for months that he was open to changing the center’s name.
“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 told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been chairing the holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.
The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The center’s website lists the show as cancelled.
President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Kennedy’s niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump’s 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.
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center a memorial to someone else, and from putting another person’s name on the outside of the building.
Trump, a Republican, has been deeply involved with the center named after an iconic Democrat after largely ignoring it during his first term. He removed his leadership, replaced the board while arranging for himself to lead it, and personally hosted this year’s Kennedy Center honors, breaking a long tradition of presidents serving mostly as entertainers. The changes at the Kennedy Center are part of the president’s larger mission to combat “woke” culture at federal cultural institutions.
Several artists have stopped Kennedy Center performances since Trump returned to office, including Issa Rae and Peter Wolf. Lin-Manuel Miranda has canceled a planned production of “Hamilton.”