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Banjo player Béla Fleck is the latest musician to pull out of planned performances at the Kennedy Center amid changes from the Trump administration.
Béla Fleck, celebrated banjo player and 18-time Grammy Award winner, announced on Tuesday the cancellation of three concerts at the Kennedy Center. The move makes Fleck the latest artist to bow out of playing at the venue since the many changes enacted by President Trump since late last year. Fleck was scheduled to play with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) in February.
“It has become less and less a musically and artistically based situation and more of a highly politicized and divisive one,” Fleck told The New York Times. “This pushes against the deepest motivations of why I want to be a musician.”
“I also am cognizant that not performing punishes the symphony for something they have nothing to do with, which is why it has taken me a while to decide what to do here,” Fleck explained.
He also added in a social media post that performing at the Kennedy Center had “become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music.”
When The New York Times asked the Kennedy Center for comment, they were directed to a social media post by Richard Grenell, interim president of the performing arts center appointed by Trump in February last year. Grenell has also threatened to sue jazz musician Chuck Redd for $1 million+ after he cancelled his scheduled performance.
“You just made it political and caved to the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties,” wrote Grenell in response to Fleck’s post announcing the cancellation of his shows. “We want performers who aren’t political—who simply love entertaining everyone regardless of who they voted for.”
According to the updated listing on the Kennedy Center’s website, Fleck—who was originally scheduled to play George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”—has bowed out due to “personal issues.” He has been replaced by the NSO’s principal clarinetist, Lin Ma, who will play Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.
In a statement from Jean Davidson, the executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, the organization said it was sorry that Fleck would not be part of the program. “Our audience will miss him, and we hope to welcome him back in the future.”
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