President Trump controlled the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. However, his administration has already planned to restructure the institution's programming.
Among them: The Celebration of Christ, planned for December. Richard Grenell, whom Trump named the new president of the Kennedy Center, told a conservative gathering on Friday that the “big change” at the center is “a big celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.” He spoke. ”
“How crazy is it to celebrate Christ at Christmas, to celebrate what we all celebrate in the world during Christmas, the birth of Christ? ?” Grenell said at a conservative political action conference held in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
The Kennedy Center has been holding Christmas themed events for a long time.
Last December, the center held a “Candle Light Christmas” by the Washington Chorus. “Family Christmas” by the Washington Choral Arts Association. and “Go Tell It,” a Christmas celebration by Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent black church in Virginia. (On Sunday, the church said it would cancel a Christmas concert there this year as new leaders at the Kennedy Center were opposed to “a long-standing tradition of celebrating artistic expression in any background.”
Grenell's comments were his first official duties to discuss his plans as the new leader of the Kennedy Center. His appointment was part of a series of extraordinary actions Trump took to solidify control of the Kennedy Center, a bipartisan institution, through his 54-year history.
Trump, who left the Kennedy Center honors during his first term after several artists criticised him, said he purged the board of Biden's Center for appointees this month and made himself the chairman. When they decided to set it up, it surprised the cultural world. It expels the center's biggest donor, investor David M. Reubenstein. The new board fired Deborah F. Lutter, the Centre's president, for over a decade, and the post was given to Trump's loyalty, Grenell, who was the German ambassador during his first term in office. .
Grenell targeted Mr. Lutter on Friday, suggesting that she was paid too much and that she left the centre in poor financial condition. (Public tax records show that for the fiscal year ending September 2023, Rutter's compensation was approximately $1.4 million.
Political journalist Dasha Burns, who was interviewing Grenell on stage at Friday's meeting, asked how much he would be paid for the role.
“There are few ways,” he replied.
Mr. Lutter declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
The Kennedy Center is a public-private partnership that wins a mere portion of a $268 million budget (approximately $43 million, or 16%) from the federal government. That grant is not spent on programming, but is allocated for the operation, maintenance and repair of the property owned by the federal government and considered a memorial to John F. Kennedy.
Grenell cited his federal aid when discussing Trump's Center's plans. “If you take away public money, you'll have public opinions,” he said.
Grenell also said that the decision to cancel the May concert, contrary to some media reports, featured a gay male chorus in Washington, DC, before he and Trump ruled the Kennedy Center. He said that was done.
When Barnes asked Grenell if he still welcomed the gay male chorus at the center, he didn't respond directly. “If you're receiving public money, you have to prove that you can actually bring in income,” he said. “We don't have the money.”
As Trump took over the center, Issa Ray cancelled his engagement there, with some well-known artists including Star Soprano Rene Fleming and singer-songwriter Ben Fold as an advisor there. I resigned.
Grenell argued that the Kennedy Center had no problem attracting well-known artists. “We already have them,” he said.
When asked why Trump chose him for his job, Grenell described himself as a culture enthusiast who appreciates “a whole bunch of different styles of art styles.”
And when asked what he thought his ideal performance at Kennedy Center, he said: “Dolly Parton.” (Parton was awarded at the Kennedy Center in 2006.)
He described his vision for the Kennedy Center in familiar terms: “We want to make art great again.”
