Judge dismisses Kennedy Center suit against musician who canceled

Jazz drummer and vibes player Chuck Redd has successfully resisted a breach of contract lawsuit brought against him after he canceled a Christmas Eve performance at the Kennedy Center after the White House announced that Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

Redd’s lawyers confirmed that the suit had been dismissed by a judge, and the musician told the Associated Press he was “very pleased” by the ruling.

Last week, another judge ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the facade and website of the center, ruling that the performing arts venue, designated as a living memorial to the late president by Congress, cannot be renamed without an act of Congress.

Richard Grenell, then the Kennedy Center’s president, threatened to sue Redd soon after he pulled the plug on the gig, saying the center would seek $1m in damages for what he termed “this political stunt”.

“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,” Grenell informed the musician.

The renamed center filed suit against Redd in March, accompanied by an offer to settle if Redd paid $7,500, played at this year’s concert, and refrained from issuing “political commentary” about his decision to withdraw from the center’s annual, free “Christmas Eve Jazz Jam”.

On Friday, DC superior court judge Tanya Jones Bosier said Kennedy Center officials had failed to show they had made a legally binding agreement with Redd to perform and there was no contract in force to breach.

“I could not find a valid breach-of-contract claim here,” Jones Bosier said before dismissing the lawsuit, according to the Washington Post. “There’s no dispute that he did not sign the 2025 agreement.”

The judge granted Redd’s motion to dismiss under the District of Columbia’s anti-Slapp (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, designed to stop legal action being taken just to silence opposing points of view on matters of public interest.

“The Center sued Mr Redd because he publicly and rightly objected to adding Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, a living memorial to former President John F Kennedy,” Lisa J Banks, one of Redd’s lawyers, said in a statement. “The lawsuit against Mr Redd was political retribution, pure and simple, by the Trump Kennedy Center, and the Court correctly saw it as such in dismissing the case with prejudice.”