Jazz Group Cancels Kennedy Center New Year’s Eve Concert After Renaming
In a message announcing the cancellation, The Cookers said the group was committed “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”
12/30/2025
In a message announcing the cancellation, The Cookers said the group was committed "to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them."
A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts which was recently renamed the The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the performing arts in Washington, DC on December 29, 2025. Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
More artists have canceled scheduled performances at the Kennedy Center following the addition of President Donald Trump’s name to the facility, with jazz supergroup The Cookers pulling out of a planned New Year’s Eve concert, and the institution’s president saying the cancellations belie the artists’ unwillingness to see their music as crossing lines of political disparity.
The fresh round of cancellations after Trump put his name on the building follows an earlier artist backlash in spring. After Trump ousted the Kennedy Center board and named himself the institution’s chairman in February, performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” cancelled scheduled engagements while musicians Ben Folds and Renee Fleming stepped down from advisory roles.
The Cookers, a jazz supergroup performing together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.
The group didn’t mention the building’s renaming or the Trump administration but did say that, when they return to performing, they wanted to ensure that “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” reiterating a commitment “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”
The group may not have addressed the Kennedy Center situation directly, but one of its members has. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper said in comments posted on the Jazz Stage Facebook page that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”
According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming. Harper said both the board, “as well as the name displayed on the building itself represents a mentality and practices I always stood against. And still do, today more than ever.”
