Washington National Opera\u2019s board approved a resolution<\/a> to leave the venue, which it has occupied since 1971.<\/p>\nLast week brought a new low for the center\u2019s calendar when renowned composer Philip Glass added his name to the growing list of protest cancellations. Glass sent a letter to the Kennedy Center board saying that he would no longer stage June\u2019s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 \u201cLincoln\u201d at the center.<\/p>\n
\u201cSymphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership,\u201d Glass wrote in the letter, which was shared with The Times.<\/p>\n
The National Symphony Orchestra had commissioned the piece and appeared to be caught off guard by Glass\u2019 announcement. Executive Director Jean Davidson said the orchestra only learned of the news at the same time as the press. <\/p>\n
Arts watchers soon began wondering about the orchestra\u2019s future at the center. Would it leave like the Washington National Opera? Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center head of communications, said that wasn\u2019t a possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relationship is strong, and we have a wonderful season here with Maestro [Gianandrea Noseda] in his 10th year leading the NSO,\u201d Daravi wrote in an email, noting the \u201crecord-breaking success at the recent Gala benefiting the NSO which launched the new season. The event raised $3.45 million, marking an all-time fundraising record for the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daravi\u2019s email did not hint at the prospect of the center closing. Trump also did not appear to be leaning in that direction early last week when he posted on his social media site that he was intent on bettering the arts complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t realize that the Trump Kennedy Center suffered massive deficits for many years and, like everything else, I merely came in to save it, and, if possible, make it far better than ever before!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s post announcing the Kennedy Center\u2019s imminent closure, Trump didn\u2019t acknowledge the recent cancellations, nor did he make mention of myriad reports that ticket sales at the venue had been plummeting. He simply said the closure would result in extraordinary results.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I]f we don\u2019t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer. The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear whether the National Symphony Orchestra will perform elsewhere during the closure. The orchestra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a year after taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8108,2308,1581,4188,8305,8142,77947,47816,48,52,51,47,50,49,1554,5767,6283,14808,1519,2805,72],"class_list":["post-160177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-announcement","tag-art","tag-board","tag-building","tag-cancellation","tag-comment","tag-fund-congress","tag-kennedy-center","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-name","tag-post","tag-president","tag-renovation","tag-trump","tag-white-house","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}