Kennedy Center Threatens $1 Million Lawsuit Against Musician Who Canceled Free Christmas Eve Show

The Kennedy Center president is threatening to sue a jazz musician who pulled out of a traditional Christmas Eve jazz concert to protest the addition of President Trump’s name to that of the iconic performing arts venue, accusing him of “a political stunt.”“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment … is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” says a letter from Ric Grenell to the musician, Chuck Redd, who had performed at the center every Christmas Eve since 2006. Mr. Grenell wrote that he would seek damages of $1 million from the musician, according to the letter, which was shared with the Associated Press. In past years the concert was performed on the center’s Millennium Stage, where attendance is free of charge.Mr. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player, told the AP in an email that he canceled the performance at the last minute in response to last week’s renaming of the center, built as a memorial to an assassinated president, as The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Mr. Redd said. He added that it “was very sad to have had to cancel,” in part because he often featured at least one student musician in the holiday concert.In his letter threatening a lawsuit, Mr. Grenell pointed out that Mr. Redd had withdrawn from the concert “explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure.”Among those efforts, Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill included approximately $257 million in federal funding — roughly six times the center’s typical annual federal appropriation — to be spent for major capital repairs, building restoration, and overdue maintenance.Mr. Trump also told reporters covering the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony this month that another $100 million in private funding had been raised “in a very short period of time” for the “rejuvenation and the rebuilding of the building.”Nevertheless, the renaming drew widespread criticism from Democrats, some arts patrons, and members of the Kennedy family, who say the building was erected as a memorial to the former president and that the name change alters that purpose.Critics also say the change violates language in the legislation establishing the board, which says that it “shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”Attendance at the center’s performances, which span the gamut from opera and ballet to folk music, has slumped since Mr. Trump replaced the center’s board of directors with a new slate of political allies, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and second lady Usha Vance. The new board elected Mr. Trump as its chairman.According to a Washington Post analysis of ticket sales data from September 3 to October 19, about 43 percent of tickets for typical productions during that period remained unsold. That compared to only 7 percent of seats left empty during a comparable period in 2024.There was also a notable slump in television viewership of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors program, hosted for the first time by Mr. Trump personally. Among those honored were actors Sylvestor Stallone and Michael Crawford; singers George Strait and Gloria Gaynor; and the rock band KISS. Mr. Trump said he was “98 percent involved” in picking the awardees.The New York Sun reported previously that preliminary data from Nielsen showed the December 23 broadcast drew in just 2.65 million viewers, down from 4.1 million viewers in 2024, marking a 35 percent decrease. In 2022, the honors drew in 5.2 million viewers.

Kennedy Center Threatens $1 Million Lawsuit Against Musician Who Canceled Free Christmas Eve Show

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