Earlier this month, it was unexpectedly announced that the Kennedy Center was getting renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center. Musician Chuck Redd protested by canceling his Christmas Eve performance at the venue, and now he’s getting threatened with legal action.
“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,” Richard Grenell, the venue’s president, wrote in a letter, according to the Associated Press. He added that he would seek $1 million in damages “for this political stunt.”
Since 2006, Redd has hosted the Jazz Jams event every year for Christmas Eve at the venue. “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” he told the Associated Press in an email.
Back in February, Ben Folds resigned his post as National Symphony Orchestra artistic advisor in protest of Trump appointing himself Kennedy Center chairman.
