The Donald Trump-controlled Kennedy Center has lost yet another integral member of its performing arts community: Jean Davidson, the executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra.
Davidson, who first assumed the position in April 2023, has said she is stepping down, citing the “current climate.”
“It’s no secret that this has been a really hard year,” she told The New York Times. “So I started looking for a new opportunity several months ago.”
She said that she “had hoped to stay through the 100th anniversary of the N.S.O. in 2031.” The National Symphony Orchestra was founded in the nation’s capital in 1931 by cellist and conductor Hans Kindler. It has been an artistic affiliate of the Kennedy Center since 1986.
Davidson’s decision comes more than a month after Trump announced plans to close the performing arts center in Washington, D.C., beginning July 4 and lasting until 2028.
“I didn’t see how I could be effective as a leader in the current climate,” she admitted, adding, “There’s been a lot of change going on, and there’s not a lot of communication. We are finding out things through the press — at the same time as everyone else. Like the center closing on July 4.”
The president stated in February that the closure would allow construction of the “new and spectacular Entertainment Complex.”
“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The Kennedy Center, which opened in 1971 as a memorial to the late president John F. Kennedy, has faced significant and detrimental changes since Trump fired the existing board and replaced them with his own Republican allies shortly after his return to office.
Numerous performers have since pulled out of their scheduled engagements at the Kennedy Center in protest. Celebrated composer Philip Glass became one of the latest to withdraw from his summer slot, where he was expected to premiere his new symphony.
“After thoughtful consideration, I have decided to withdraw my Symphony No. 15 ‘Lincoln’ from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” he said in a statement on Instagram.
“Symphony 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,” Glass said. “Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”
