Kennedy Center New Year's Eve concerts canceled after addition of Trump's name
“The Cookers jazz ensemble canceled their New Year’s Eve performances at the Kennedy Center, citing the recent renaming of the venue to include Donald Trump’s name. This cancellation adds to a growing list of artists withdrawing from the Kennedy Center since the name change, which has been criticized by Democrats and the Kennedy family.
"Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice. Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us," the Cookers jazz ensemble said in a statement.
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The Kennedy Center had promoted two New Year's Eve performances by the Cookers as an "all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul."
Richard Grenell, a longtime ally of the U.S. president whom Trump named as the center's president, said on Monday that such boycotts are a "form of derangement syndrome" and the cancelations are coming from artists booked by the institution's previous leadership. He has previously termed cancelations a "political stunt."
The board voted to rename the arts venue The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or Trump Kennedy Center for short.
Trump has been eager to put his stamp on Washington and his name on buildings in his second term. His critics say he has compromised institutions by installing loyalists and making funding threats. Trump says he is tackling what he calls those institutions' liberal bias.
Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Saad Sayeed“
