The Kennedy Middle already noticed a Christmas live performance canceled in protest of its current identify change. Now, a pair of exhibits scheduled to happen on the once-prestigious Washington, DC, venue on New 12 months’s Eve has been referred to as off, additionally reportedly due the board’s resolution to rebrand as “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Middle for the Performing Arts.”
The New York Instances reviews {that a} pair of NYE concert events to be carried out by the jazz supergroup The Cookers has been canceled. In an announcement the band mentioned, “Jazz was born from wrestle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the complete human voice.” Talking individually to The Instances, The Cookers’ drummer Billy Hart mentioned the Kennedy Middle’s identify change “evidently” factored into their resolution to tug out of the gigs, and added that the group was involved about attainable reprisals.
Previous to saying the exhibits’ cancellation, Billy Harper, a saxophonist in The Cookers, posted on Fb that he would “by no means even contemplate performing in a venue bearing a reputation (and being managed by the sort of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and tradition.” He added, “… After all of the years I spent working with a number of the best heroes of the anti-racism battle like Max Roach and Randy Weston and Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stanley Cowell, I do know they’d be turning of their graves to see me stand on a stage beneath such circumstances and betray all we fought for, and sacrificed for.”
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Together with The Cookers, two different Kennedy Middle performers have referred to as off their scheduled gigs in current days. Doug Varone and Dancers mentioned they’d not seem on the venue in April, whereas folks singer Kristy Lee pulled the plug on a present set for mid-January.
These cancellations observe jazz musician Chuck Redd’s resolution earlier this month to tug out of his annual Christmas live performance on the Kennedy Middle in protest of its identify change. In response, the venue’s president, Kennedy Middle president Rick Grenell mentioned he would search $1 million in damages from Redd over what he deemed to be a “political stunt.”
Quite a few different artists have additionally severed ties with the Kennedy Middle since Trump’s takeover of the venue, together with Rhiannon Giddens, Ben Folds, and Renée Fleming. A touring manufacturing of Hamilton may even not stage on the middle.
