Blockhead that I am, I was unaware that the Kennedy Center was collapsing on itself in January 2025 and that God had sent Donald Trump to rescue it. I looked forward to hearing the National Symphony Orchestra perform in the Concert Hall, perhaps an evening of Mahler or Brahms that I would remember for the rest of my life.
You know what happened. Trump, who never visited the Kennedy Center during his first term in office, and only visited the Center in March 2025, after appointing himself Chairman of the Kennedy Center Board of Directors, shocked Washington, D.C. by announcing the Kennedy Center was in sorry shape, and only he could fix it.
The Kennedy Center Board, repopulated with Trump loyalists, some with scant evidence of interest in the arts, followed Trump’s visit, by putting Donald J. Trump’s name ahead of John F. Kennedy’s on the side of the building. The new name was installed at record speed, of course.
Trump’s Kennedy Center Blitzkrieg ignited a mass cancellation of various acts that were booked for the 2025-26 season. Trump commented that things like classical music were money losers anyway. He and his Board promised to replace much of the programming at the Kennedy Center with music, plays and other arts they believe to be more “in sync” with the tastes of the American public.
Goodbye Beethoven, hello Lee Greenwood.
With disgust I read that the NSO would not play at the Kennedy Center while a two-year restoration would take place requiring the building to be closed. For the upcoming season, the NSO will perform at six separate venues.
A legal challenge to the take-over of the Kennedy Center followed, and a judge ordered Trump’s name to be removed from the side of the building. Trump reluctantly complied, but, anticipating that the judge’s ruling would be overturned, or that the public would acquiesce in Trump renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, the lettering spelling out Trump’s name was removed behind a curtain, a curtain that remains in place to this day.
Trump, angry at being denied the creation of another monument to himself to complement the Ballroom/Military Base at the White House, the Trump Arch, and even the renamed Trump Institute for Peace building, now threatens to walk away from the entire Kennedy Center project. The Board has announced the indefinite closure of the Kennedy Center and Trump has said that he will not lift a finger to save unless his name is returned to the Center.
Let’s call that an impasse. Meanwhile, the Kennedy Center Board has announced the building is unfit for habitation. Last week, the Board claims a huge chunk of ceiling fell down in the Center’s Grand Foyer. (Curious timing, in my view.) They also produced a slick video showing rusting steel beams, leaky pipes, and disintegrating concrete.
Lovers of the Kennedy Center can’t tell where the lies end and truth begins. And, given the transparency policies of the Trump administration, the truth may never be known.
So, I am left wondering, will I ever go to another play or concert at the Kennedy Center? Will the NSO make it through what will surely be a difficult time, both financially and musically? (Will this great orchestra be rendered mediocre by Donald Trump?). Will Washington have Opera and Ballet companies when and if the Kennedy Center or its replacement ever opens?
My message to the Kennedy Center is, for now, “Goodbye.” President John Fitzgerald Kennedy deserves better, and so do the American people.
