The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., is demanding $1 million in damages from a musician who canceled a concert after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s name was added to the venue.
Chuck Redd, who has hosted an annual Christmas Eve performance at the center since 2006, called off the event, citing a board vote to rename the site the Trump Kennedy Center.
Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, wrote in a letter that the cancellation was a “political stunt” that “has cost us considerably.” Redd has not yet responded to requests for comment.
Shortly after taking office, Trump replaced several board members with allies, who subsequently voted to make him chairman of the board.
In his letter to Redd, Grenell stated that the no-show was “classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution.”
He added, “Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably.”
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1m in damages from you for this political stunt.”
Last week, the White House announced that the center’s board had voted unanimously to rename the cultural institution as The Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The following day, crews were seen etching the former president’s name onto the building’s façade. The center’s website and some social media accounts were also renamed.
The White House stated that the renaming was in recognition of Trump’s actions to renovate the building, but the move was met with criticism from Democrats, artists, and members of the Kennedy family.
“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, a drummer and vibraphone player, told the Associated Press earlier this week.
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, recently filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump’s name from the center.
In her lawsuit, she argued that changing the center’s name, which was established in a 1964 law, should require “an act of Congress.”
The lawsuit states that Beatty called into the meeting about the name change but was muted when she attempted to voice her opposition. She is one of several lawmakers designated as members of the board by U.S. law.
Work on a national performing arts center began in the 1950s, and after Kennedy, the 35th president, was assassinated in 1963, Congress decided to establish it as a living memorial to him.
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