What’s the latest with the Kennedy Center?
Trump’s push to rename and renovate the Kennedy Center sparked a legal battle and removed signage.
A judge ruled in favor of a jazz musician whom the Kennedy Center sued for backing out of a performance, which he said was a protest against the arts institution’s renaming in honor of President Donald Trump.
In an Aug. 10 ruling in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia reviewed by USA TODAY, Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier awarded Chuck Redd $252,479.70 in attorneys’ fees and costs. The decision came months after Bosier dismissed the Kennedy Center’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against the vibraphonist and drummer.
The Kennedy Center has 45 days from the issuing of the order to remit payment to Redd’s legal counsel. A spokesperson told USA TODAY that the center’s lawyers intend to file an appeal.
“The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center tried to silence opposition to its illegal name change by filing a meritless lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd,” Redd’s attorney, Lisa J. Banks, said in an Aug. 11 statement to USA TODAY. “The court rightly dismissed that breach of contract lawsuit, finding there was no contract and no damages, and was brought against Mr. Redd based on his protected opposition.”
The order was “appropriate, as no citizen should have to spend time and money fending off baseless and politically motivated lawsuits filed by the Trump Administration,” Banks added.
Kennedy Center lawyers: ‘Deprive the public of the concert he promised’
In February, Trump announced he would become chairman of the Kennedy Center and terminated several members of its board of trustees. Months later, the board members – who were mostly appointed by Trump – cast a controversial unanimous vote on Dec. 18 to rename the institution to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Redd, 67, subsequently canceled an annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam performance and explained to the Associated Press and CNN that he’d made the decision “when I saw the name change” taking place at the Kennedy Center.
On March 5, lawyers for the Kennedy Center sued Redd, alleging he “chose to abuse the public forum provided to him by the Center in order to make a political statement, and to deprive the public of the concert he promised.”
Bosier’s June 5 ruling granting Redd’s motion to dismiss found that, unlike in previous years, the musician never signed a contract for the free performance. Though the Kennedy Center’s legal team said it “incurred damage from lost goodwill with the public, wasted marketing expenses, and sunk costs preparing for a concert that did not occur,” the judge wrote that the institution failed “to allege damages for a valid breach of contract claim.”
Trump is fighting a federal judge’s ruling that removed his name from the Kennedy Center’s signage and other official materials in June. The judge also halted Trump’s plans to close the venue for two years for extensive renovations.
Redd is a Maryland-born musician who kicked off his career in the late 1970s by drumming for the late bossa nova guitarist Charlie Byrd — a partnership that spanned 19 years. A former University of Maryland faculty member, Redd performed alongside Barney Kessel at the White House for former President Jimmy Carter’s state dinner in 1981.
Redd has been a touring artist for over four decades, performing alongside feted musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, and Mel Tormé, according to Redd’s bio.