By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – National Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Jean Davidson announced on Friday that she was stepping down from the ensemble that primarily performs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
“It’s no secret that this has been a really hard year,” Davidson told the New York Times, while noting that she started looking for a new opportunity several months ago.
She will head the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in California.
The National Symphony Orchestra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Davidson’s departure follows months of turmoil at the Kennedy Center, a national cultural center in the U.S. capital that was named after former President John F. Kennedy months after his assassination. President Donald Trump has appointed himself as chairman, pushed to change the organization’s focus and named a board that voted last year to add his name to the institution. Last month, Trump announced that the Kennedy Center would close for two years, for reconstruction work.
U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat and ex-officio Kennedy Center board member, last year filed a court challenge over the name change. On Friday, she amended that lawsuit to also ask the court to halt moves to “shutter and gut” the facility.
Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the center, said in a statement to Reuters: “We’re confident the court will uphold the board’s decision on the name change and the desperately needed renovations which will continue as scheduled.”
Beatty said in her lawsuit that board members appointed by Trump, a Republican, also had unlawfully stripped voting rights from her and other ex-officio board members who serve under an act of Congress. Ex-officio members come from both political parties.
In response to a request for comment on board members’ voting rights, Daravi’s office referred Reuters to comments made by Daravi to the Washington Post, saying that ex-officio members have never voted.
“The bylaws were revised to reflect this longstanding precedent and everyone received the technical changes both before the meeting and after revisions,” Daravi wrote in an email to the Post, which reported on the bylaw changes late last year.
Dozens of artists have canceled performances at the center since Trump returned to the White House last year. While an array of reasons have been given for the cancellations, some artists have cited opposition to aspects of Trump’s agenda. Among the many events it has historically hosted are the Kennedy Center Honors, usually held every December.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Donna Bryson and Matthew Lewis)
