The president of the Kennedy Center has sharply criticized a musician for canceling a Christmas Eve performance after the White House announced Donald Trump’s name would be added to the venue.
Richard Grenell, the centre’s president, sent a letter to musician Chuck Redd condemning the decision.
He wrote: “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.”
Grenell further stated in the letter that he would pursue $1 million in damages, labelling the cancellation a “political stunt.”
Redd has not yet responded to requests for comment.
A drummer and vibraphone player, Redd has presided over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.
In an email Wednesday, Redd said he pulled out of the concert in 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 said.
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.
According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming, which scholars have said violates the law.
Kennedy 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 into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
