More artists pull out of Kennedy Center shows following name change

By Piper HudspethBlackburn, CNN

(CNN) — The Kennedy Center has been hit with a string of abrupt cancelations in the wake of its board of trustees’ adding President Donald Trump’s name to the landmark performing arts institution.

Just days before they were set to perform twice on New Year’s Eve, the jazz group the Cookers backed out of the gig.

“With deep regret, we must share that we are unable to perform as planned on New Year’s Eve,” the group said in a statement, explaining that the decision came together very quickly. “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

While the group did not provide details behind the decision, Billy Hart, the Cookers’ drummer, told The New York Times that the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the cancelation, noting concerns about the potential for retaliation.

New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers also announced on Monday that they’re canceling their performances set for April, because “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.”

Kristy Lee, a folk singer-songwriter who was slated to perform on January 14, also canceled her show due to the name change. “When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else’s ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night,” she said last week in a social media post.

CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment. The center’s president, Richard Grenell, dismissed the cancelations as “a form of derangement syndrome” in a post to X on Monday night.

“The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” he said. “Their actions prove that the previous team was more concerned about booking far left political activists rather than artists willing to perform for everyone regardless of their political beliefs.”

The cancelations come after the board of trustees of the voted earlier this month to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Art,” marking the president’s latest effort to leave his mark on the Washington, DC, arts institution. The center updated its website with the new name hours later, and and signage that added Trump’s name to the front of the building was installed the next day.

The change prompted the longtime host of the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Eve jazz performance to cancel last Wednesday’s concert.

“I’ve been performing at the Kennedy Center since the beginning of my career and I was saddened to see this name change,” musician Chuck Redd told CNN last week.

Grenell criticized Redd in a letter the center shared with CNN, calling the drummer and vibraphonist’s decision to cancel “classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution.” Grenell also faulted Redd for the financial fallout of the cancelation and said the center will seek $1 million in damages.

Prior to the renaming, Trump’s aggressive push to reshape the Kennedy Center had already prompted some artists to back away from the venue.

After Trump’s handpicked board elected him chair in February, artists including Issa Rae, Renée Fleming, Shonda Rhimes and Ben Folds resigned from their leadership roles or canceled events at the space. And Jeffrey Seller, producer of the hit musical “Hamilton,” canceled the show’s planned run earlier this year.

Since taking over, the president has hosted the Kennedy Center Honors earlier this month, and touted the restoration of the exterior marble, the interior chairs and “fully” renovated stages, which he says will be complete within a year.

Before board’s vote to rename the performing arts center after him, Trump frequently joked about calling it “the Trump Kennedy Center.”

The change has raised legal concerns as to whether the board has the authority to rename the arts institution, which Congress designated in 1964 as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy following his assassination in Dallas.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio trustee of the board, sued the president in federal court to challenge the name change. She said that she was muted on Zoom during the board meeting when she tried to speak up in objection to the vote, and argued in the lawsuit that the vote and the addition of Trump’s name to the physical building the day after were “scenes more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes than the American republic.”

The addition of Trump’s name has also been met with fierce backlash from the Kennedy family.

“The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman and the great-nephew of the late president, said on X. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.

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CNN’s Betsy Klein and Aleena Fayaz contributed to this report.