The Kennedy Center cancelled their annual Christmas Eve jazz concert on Wednesday after the usual host decided to protest President Donald Trump’s recent changes to the art center’s name.
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Jazz drummer and vibraphone player Chuck Redd, who has hosted the concert for close to two decades, said that he made the decision after Trump announced he would add his name to the center dedicated to the legacy of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. As of last Friday, the building’s facade reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, a decision made by Trump’s hand-picked board, which he himself now chairs.
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“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 in an email to The Associated Press on Christmas Eve.
“Join in our annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam for an evening of music that’ll fill you with holiday cheer,” the listing for the usual event said on the center’s website, though by Christmas eve the listing said “Cancelled” beside it.
The cancellation follows a handful of other events that have seen the same fate since Trump’s self-appointment as chairman earlier this year. 15 events have been cancelled by the acts themselves, including by actress Issa Rae and award-winning composer Lin Manuel Miranda.
The Kennedy Center was designated as a “living memorial” to Kennedy by Congress in 1964, after his assassination in November 1963. The name change and Trump’s general overhaul of the arts center has been criticized by lawmakers and experts who argue that his name change goes against Congressional law, which explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else.
Democratic Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty sued Trump for the move earlier this week, calling the name change a “flagrant violation” of law and “a complete disgrace” to the Kennedy Center as an institution.
“Only Congress has the authority to rename the Kennedy Center,” said Congresswoman Beatty in a statement regarding the suit. “President Trump and his cronies must not be allowed to trample federal law and bypass Congress to feed his ego.”
Trump, for his part, has said he was “surprised” and “honored” by the board’s decision to approve the name change, though he composed the members earlier this year, and his close advisor Richard Grenell became board President.
The family of Kennedy, a famed Democrat, have also come out against the move, including the former President’s grandnephew, Joe Kennedy III.
“[The Kennedy Center] can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says,” he said on Xin response to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announcing the name decision.
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