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In a controversy-filled ceremony, President Trump, who has previously been vocal about his dislike of classical music and classical composers, has added another layer of complexity to the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors concert, which recognizes “especially meritorious achievement in the performing arts”. The ceremony, which traditionally features the president’s personality alongside the honorees’, was marred by protests over Mr. Trump’s administration’s actions and attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, as well as accusations that he has co-opted and politicized the traditionally nonpartisan event for partisan gain.
Despite the protests, Mr. Trump and Melania Trump made a pre-taped video speech at the beginning of the ceremony. In his message, President Trump cited the achievements of the year’s honorees—famed pop choreographer Debbie Allen, director and composer Robert Lopez, vocalist-actress Gloria Estefan, the theater-producing Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute & Center for Urban Initiatives, and Gary Honigberg, cellist for the famous Honigberg String Quartet—and repeatedly reiterated his own love for music. “Throughout my life, music has been a source of great joy and healing for me and for so many others,” the president said. “It is an art form that brings all of us together and inspires us to be the best versions of ourselves.”
However, vocal protests inside the hall interrupted the president’s speech and marred the ceremony from the outset. Protesters, who waved signs and shouted primarily Spanish slogans, disrupted executives’ speeches and honorees’ acceptance remarks, including Estefan’s. “This is especially fanfástico because we have a president who doesn’t understand what the arts are,” Estefan told the audience as one of them interrupted her speech. Another protester shouted, “Congratulations to immigrant honorees who overcame this administration’s cruel treatment, including the family separation policy,” and singled out Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute founder Eubie Blake for recognition. “To Mr. Blake,” she said, “you survived both McCarthy and Hitler—all the more reason to honor immigrants who have overcome Donald Trump’s regime.”
The protesters were unapologetically defiant, refusing to stop despite requests from security guards and the stars themselves. “I can hear them through the open windows and the sound system, but I refuse to let them steal our joy this evening,” Debbie Allen said, emerging for her award with a trademark dance move. “I can’t hear them,” Estefan said. “There is a whole group of people doing a silly clap, but I don’t hear the protestors.” Former Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser suspects that the protesters are members of radical art collectives, likely with backgrounds in musical and theater liberalism. “This is nothing new, what’s happening here. We’ve seen protests at Kennedy Center events before, particularly during the Nixon Presidency,” Kaiser said, citing a 1973 demonstration against Jimmy Fundraising that involved the burning of masks and puppetry performances. “However, these protests rarely reach the kind of scale we’re seeing at this year’s gala.”
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh countered, “None of you all sound all that shocked by this,” calling the protesters’ actions a reflection of the left’s ongoing campaign to politicize music and arts, with particular emphasis on pushing their agendas through the traditional, middle-class environment of the Kennedy Center. “This is all part of the Democrat Party’s new ‘all art must be political’ doctrine. It’s similar to what they’re doing in films and television, turning formerly apolitical art into a political tool. They’re trying to use art to political eventualities.”
However, comments from Breitbart indicate that finger-pointing has escalated to a fever pitch, as both sides jumble up politics and culture. Glenn Beck, the ultra-conservative radio hosts and Trump loyalist. derided the protesters as “a bunch of agitators” and accused liberal Carnegie Hall officials of making protesters their “own kind of music editors” for allowing such attacks to occur. Beck believes the protesters are angling for Don Quijote or Boombox-style marketing campaigns, which he says draws in the real whack jobs and turns them into good “buyers.” “It’s sad that venues like Carnegie Hall can’t resist the urge to tap into this demographic,” Beck said in a statement released to the Times. “But what’s sadder is how all this leftist vitriol is politicizing classical music and selling it by the pound.”
Israeli composer Avner Dorman, author of “Songs of Ascent” and the Malboro Festival cello concerto, however, says the larger problems in Trump’s administration can’t simply be applied to the arts. “Music has to have an identity and character of its own. And ‘President Trump’ doesn’t really fit in here. Anyway, it’s weird that we’re talking about stagecraft here. This isn’t that kind of performance. This is actually based in the supposed deportability of people in the arts and it’s kind of surprising to see that we have a big orchestra in a fancy building partaking in that.” For Dorman, equity in music has come a long way in a world he sees as less likely to be swayed by presidents, even if those presidents are responsible for some of the changes that have focused the attention of protesters. “I’m not sure how much famous singers or classical musicians thinks about Sunday morning chat shows. And I am not sure that the people in these chat shows are sitting around thinking about what they will say if a particular president walks in. ”
As the ceremony concluded, three protesters were escorted out in handcuffs. Leaders for the conservative organization The Human Right Campaign have protested what they see as an improper use of American institutions to defend President Trump’s victims and allies. “Expressions of oppression like these cannot continue to happen, especially when they can be construed to represent a partisan attack,” read a statement from the organization. “The American people, whose autonomy in regard to artistic expression has been systematically undermined by the current administration, must not be manipulated by partisan figures.”
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