JD Vance
Is Booed at a Kennedy Center Concert After Trump’s Takeover
The vice
president and his wife were booed as they took their seats for a National
Symphony Orchestra concert of music by Shostakovich and Stravinsky.
Javier C.
Hernández
By Javier C.
Hernández
March 13,
2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/arts/music/jd-vance-booed-kennedy-center.html
It was
supposed to be a moment of celebration: Vice President JD Vance was attending a
concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on
Thursday evening for the first time since President Trump’s stunning takeover
of the institution.
Instead, as
Mr. Vance took his seat in the box tier with the second lady, Usha Vance, loud
boos broke out in the auditorium, lasting roughly 30 seconds, according to
audience members and a video posted on social media. Mr. Vance was shown in the
video waving to the audience as he settled into his seat.
The incident
put on display the outcry over Mr. Trump’s decision last month to purge the
Kennedy Center’s once-bipartisan board of its Biden appointees and have himself
elected its chairman. (The president, who broke with tradition during his first
term by not attending the Kennedy Center Honors after some of the artists being
celebrated criticized him, complained that the center had become too “wokey.”)
Mr. Vance
attended Thursday’s performance by the National Symphony Orchestra, one of the
Kennedy Center’s flagship groups. The ensemble, under the baton of its music
director, Gianandrea Noseda, performed Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2,
with Leonidas Kavakos as the soloist. After an intermission, the orchestra
played Stravinsky’s “Petrushka.”
The Vances
stayed for the entire concert, audience members said. Ms. Vance was recently
appointed by Mr. Trump to serve as a board member at the Kennedy Center,
alongside other Trump allies like Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff;
and Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host.
The concert
started about 20 minutes late because of added security measures, audience
members said.
Roma Daravi,
a spokeswoman for the Kennedy Center, said she had no comment on the episode.
A White
House spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
In February,
President Trump ousted the Kennedy Center’s longtime chairman, the financier
David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. His new board of loyalists
elected him chairman and fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for
more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were also dismissed.
Performers,
including the actress Issa Rae and the musician Rhiannon Giddens, have dropped
out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s calls to rid the center of “woke”
influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” would result in a
reshaping of programming. The musical “Hamilton” recently scrapped a planned
tour there next year.
While Mr.
Trump has not yet articulated his vision for the center, his appointees have
provided some hints. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as the center’s new
president, recently said that the center planned “a big, huge celebration of
the birth of Christ at Christmas.”
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