“Kennedy Center – panoramio” by jiazi is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

On Thursday, Dec. 18, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ board of trustees voted to rename the cultural institution as the Trump-Kennedy Center. In the weeks since, the artistic community has responded, with several performers booked for the prestigious venue now lodging their objections through cancellations.

The latest artists to pull out of their planned engagement at the Kennedy Center are the Grammy-nominated, all-star jazz septet the Cookers, who were slated to offer two performances billed as “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on December 31. The post-bop supergroup, featuring storied performers Eddie Henderson, Donald Harrison, Cecil McBee, David Weiss, Craig Handy, George Cables and Billy Hart, announced their cancellation in a post to the band’s website; while the notice intones that the “decision has come together very quickly,” legendary drummer Hart told The New York Times that it had been “evidently” influenced by the name-change.

“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 expressed in their shared statement. “We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it.

“To everyone who is disappointed or upset, we understand and share your sadness,” the band concluded. “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The Cookers are joined in their departure from the Kennedy Center’s calendar by Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company that was set to celebrate its 40th anniversary with two performances in April. Varone told the Times that they would lose $40,000 through the cancellation. “It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” the company’s head wrote in an email.

The sustained stream of cancelled performances at the Kennedy Center follows the highly publicized move made by jazz drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd, who cancelled his annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jams days after the controversial renaming was swiftly carried out on the national theater’s website and in new signage on its facade. Redd’s withdrawal was met with wrath from venue president Richard Grenell, who wrote that the artist’s “politcal stunt,”  “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.”

Grenell’s letter, obtained by the Associated Press, goes on to declare that the Kennedy Center plans to sue Redd for $1 million in damages after the holidays.

“The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” Grenell expressed in another statement on Monday .“Their actions prove that the previous team was more concerned about booking far left political activists rather than artists willing to perform for everyone regardless of their political beliefs. Boycotting the Arts to show you support the Arts is a form of derangement syndrome.”

Grenell assumed his post after Trump’s overthrow of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees in February. Since that first encroachment, many artists have abandoned their plans to perform at the venue, including Rhiannon Giddens, Renée Fleming and Ben Folds, who resigned from his position as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra. Others, like Guster, took their protest to the stage.
Read more about Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center here.