Ambassador Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed president of the Kennedy Center, said the organization will seek $1 million in damages from famed jazz musician Chuck Redd after Redd abruptly canceled this year’s free Christmas Eve concert to protest the center’s renaming to “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
In the Dec. 26 letter to Redd, first reported by the AP, Grenell wrote: “Your decision to step down 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 for a nonprofit arts institution.” »
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” Grenell wrote.
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Redd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Redd had directed the annual Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center since 2006. On Wednesday, he told the AP that he canceled this year’s event after Trump’s name was added to the building and the organization’s website. “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website, and then a few hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd said, according to the AP.
On Dec. 19, workers added Trump’s name to the center, a day after the White House claimed that the Kennedy Center board of trustees — hand-picked by President Trump — voted unanimously to rename the facility the “Trump Kennedy Center.”
Legal experts say the center’s renaming is illegal because a 1964 federal law established its name as the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” in tribute to the assassinated president and explicitly prohibits the board of directors from adding any other name to the building’s exterior. On Monday, Dec. 22, U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) sued Trump and the Kennedy Center board in an attempt to force the removal of Trump’s name from the organization, claiming that an act of Congress was needed to change his name.
The free Dec. 24 concert at the Kennedy Center was scheduled to take place at noon Tuesday on the center’s Millennium Stage. “Participate in our annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam for an evening of music that will fill you with holiday cheer,” the cultural center said when promoting the event.
Redd, 67, is “well known internationally as a drum and vibraphone performer” and is featured on more than 80 recordings, according to his website. The musician began recording and touring at the age of 21 when he joined the Charlie Byrd Trio. He also became a member of the Great Guitars (Barney Kessel, Byrd and Herb Ellis) and was an artist in residence at the Smithsonian Jazz Café in Washington, DC, from 2004 to 2008. Redd was also a member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra for 15 years.
After Trump took office for a second term in February 2025, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter was fired. Trump then nominated Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration and had been Trump’s envoy for special missions. Trump also ousted Democratic members of the Kennedy Center board and replaced them with his own allies.
Trump had criticized the Kennedy Center for hosting woke programs. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA – ONLY THE BEST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in announcing Grenell’s nomination. During the opening night of Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center in June, four drag queens attended the show and were seated under the presidential box, CNN reported.
Separately, on Friday, Trump posted images on Truth Social of “potential marble armrests” for the Kennedy Center seats. “Unlike anything that has ever been done or seen before!” »wrote the president.
