Washington National Opera Is Leaving the Kennedy Center; The New York Times, January 9, 2026

Adam Nagourney, The New York Times; Washington National Opera Is Leaving the Kennedy Center

"The Washington National Opera decided on Friday to move its performances out of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, abandoning the hall where it has played since 1971 in perhaps the largest artistic rebuke yet to President Trump’s campaign to remake the Kennedy Center in his image.

The opera company is seeking to sever its ties with the Kennedy Center after a tumultuous year in which both groups have faced cancellations by artists, empty seats and the retrenchment of donors protesting Mr. Trump’s intervention. Within weeks of beginning his second term, the president named himself chairmanof the center and installed a political ally, Richard Grenell, as its executive director, while filling its board with supporters.

A resolution to leave was approved by the Washington National Opera’s board of trustees on Friday, according to a statement the opera provided to The New York Times...

Officials with the Washington National Opera noted that operas often advance strong political and moral points of views — whether they were written two centuries or two years ago — and that they were worried they would be blocked from performing operas that did not follow Mr. Grenell’s edicts. Among its programming this season is Robert Ward’s “The Crucible,” based on the Arthur Miller play that explored the waves of paranoia overtaking a small town during the Salem witch trials of the 17th century."

New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled; The New York Times, December 29, 2025

Adam Nagourney and Neil Vigdor, The New York Times ; New Year’s Eve Concerts at Kennedy Center Are Canceled

[Kip Currier: The principles of integrity and character are unsurprisingly alien to Richard Grenell. Artists are likely canceling Kennedy Center engagements because they don't want to be associated with an administration that has attacked free expression and the diversity of human experience, financially diminished the arts, as well as science, and that has violated federal law by adding Donald Trump's name to an arts organization memorializing our slain 35th President, John F. Kennedy Jr.

Standing up for values one believes in -- values that are bigger than oneself -- is an example of moral courage, not "derangement".]

[Excerpt]

"A veteran jazz ensemble and a New York dance company have canceled events at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, intensifying the fallout at one of the nation’s pre-eminent arts centers after it was renamed to include President Trump...

The Cookers did not give a reason for the decision in a statement on Monday that said, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice."...

Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, also said on Monday that it was canceling two performances in April that had been intended to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Mr. Varone, the head of the company, said it would lose $40,000 by pulling out.

“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” he said in an email.

Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center’s chairman, said in a statement on Monday night that the artists canceling shows were “far-left political activists” and that they had been booked by previous leadership. “Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” he said."

Kennedy Center criticizes musician who canceled performance after Trump name added to building; AP, December 26, 2025

STEVEN SLOAN , AP; Kennedy Center criticizes musician who canceled performance after Trump name added to building

"The president of the Kennedy Center on Friday fiercely criticized a musician’s sudden decision to cancel a Christmas Eve performance at the venue days after the White House announced that President Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

“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,” the venue’s president, Richard Grenell, wrote in a letter to musician Chuck Redd that was shared with The Associated Press.

In the letter, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages “for this political stunt.”"