Overview:
Chuck Redd, the music director for the annual Oregon Festival of American Music at The Shedd Institute, cancelled a Christmas Eve concert at the Kennedy Center after President Donald Trump added his name to the cultural center. The Kennedy Center’s president has threatened to seek $1 million in damages from Redd.
The president of the Kennedy Center has threatened to seek $1 million in damages from a musician with extensive ties to Eugene after that musician, Chuck Redd, cancelled a Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Washington, D.C. cultural center.
The annual Christmas Eve “Jazz Jams” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was cancelled this week after Redd, its host for close to two decades, learned President Donald Trump had added his name to the building.
Redd, a jazz drummer and vibraphonist, is likely familiar to jazz fans in Eugene: He’s the music director for the annual Oregon Festival of American Music at The John G. Shedd Institute, where he’ll host a series of winter season OFAM concerts next month.
Friday, the Associated Press reported the contents of a letter from Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell to Redd, criticizing his decision as a “political stunt” and threatening to seek $1 million in damages.
Redd has hosted the Christmas Eve “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since taking over as host in 2006. Earlier this week, Redd decided to cancel the performance in the wake of the White House’s announcement last Thursday, Dec. 18, that it would rename the center as the Trump Kennedy Center.
“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 wrote in an email to the AP on Wednesday, Dec. 24.
Redd did not respond to a request for comment.
The Kennedy Center has been a cultural focus during Trump’s second term in office, leading up to the Trump name being added to the building last Friday, Dec. 19.
In February, Trump removed 18 board members appointed by former President Joe Biden and became chair of the cultural center after its longtime president Deborah F. Rutter was fired. Trump had denounced the center’s past programming and talked about his vision for a “GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture” as he selected Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany, to lead the center.
Waves of artists have cancelled performances at the venue as Trump gained control over the cultural center, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and the actress, writer and comedian Issa Rae in February and folk singer Kristy Lee this week.
This week, blowback from the addition of Trump’s name on the building and website spurred more criticism, including Redd’s cancellation.
A lawsuit from a Democratic lawmaker on the center’s board, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, is challenging the name change, arguing that changing the center’s name without an act of Congress violates the original 1964 John F. Kennedy Center Act, which renamed the center as a “living memorial” to former President John F. Kennedy.