Kennedy Center Announces Pricey ‘Consequences’ For Musician Who Canceled Show Over Renaming

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The president of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Richard Grennell, announced on X that there will be “consequences” for musicians who cancel performances to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to rename the building.

Fox News Digital reported that jazz musician Chuck Redd “abruptly” canceled his Christmas Eve performance over the addition of President Trump’s name above that of assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

On Dec. 18, the performing arts center’s board said it had voted unanimously to rename the institution the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”

Redd told the Associated Press, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.”

In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, Grenell accused Redd of carrying out “a political stunt” that hurt the nonprofit institution, and said he would seek $1 million in damages.

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” he wrote in the letter to Redd.

Grennell posted to X, “The left is boycotting the Arts because Trump is supporting the Arts. But we will not let them cancel shows without consequences. The Arts are for everyone – and the Left is mad about it.”

Redd isn’t the first artist to pull out of the venue over political differences. Last spring, the cast of Hamilton canceled their planned Kenedy Center performances over Trump’s decision to take over the art institution, and others have followed suit.

A Kennedy Center spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement, “Any artist canceling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people.”