Béla Fleck Cancels Kennedy Center Concerts

Béla Fleck, photo by Jesse Borrell

Béla Fleck has cancelled three concerts set at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The pioneering banjoist’s withdrawal follows several other performers in objection to the Trump administration’s politicized changes to the prestigious cultural institution, most notably its legally dubious renaming as the Trump-Kennedy Center in December.

Fleck was scheduled to join the National Symphony Orchestra for a series of performances of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as part of the American Mosaic cultural celebration. “Performing there has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music,” Fleck explained of his decision in an announcement post to his social channels. “I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”

“It has become less and less a musically and artistically based situation and more of a highly politicized and divisive one,” Fleck expanded on his reasoning in a statement to The New York Times. “This pushes against the deepest motivations of why I want to be a musician.” The artist went on to acknowledge the nuances and consequences of the situation, regretting that he would isolate any fans and that “not performing punishes the symphony for something they have nothing to do with.”

The Kennedy Center’s website has updated the listing for the American Mosaid concerts to attribute Fleck’s withdrawal to “personal issues.” The venue’s official response came in the form of another livid social post from its president, Richard Grenell, who wrote that Fleck “made it political and caved to the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties. This mob pressuring you will never be happy until you only play for Democrats… We want performers who aren’t political – who simply love entertaining everyone regardless of who they voted for.”

Fleck’s cancelled Kennedy Center performances follow highly publicized moves by all-star jazz septet the Cookers, New York dance company Doug Varone and Dancers, jazz drummer and vibraphonist Chuck Redd and more. For withdrawing from his annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jams, the Kennedy Center plans to sue Redd for $1 million in damages, according to a letter from Grenell that described the artist’s “political stunt” as “classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution.”

Grenell assumed his post after Trump’s overthrow of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees in February. Since that first encroachment, many artists have abandoned their plans to perform at the venue, including Rhiannon Giddens, Renée Fleming and Ben Folds, who resigned from his position as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra. Others, like Guster, took their protest to the stage.

Read more about Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center here.