Ben Folds resigns on the orchestra post while Trump takes over Kennedy Center

Ben folds has resigned as an artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra as president Donald Trump took the lead for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

“Given the developments in the Kennedy Center, today I take off the NSO as an artistic adviser,” Folds wrote Instagram Wednesday 12 February. “Not for me.”

Folds was called the first artistic adviser of the NSO in 2017. Since then, he mainly leads the “Declassified” concert series, which finds the NSO re -image classical and contemporary music in addition to a range of various artists. Previous versions were Julien Baker, Sara Bareilles, Jon Batiste, Jacob Collier and William Shatner.

In his dismissal bill, Folds thanked his various employees in the Kennedy Center and the NSO and spoke about how much it meant for him to spend eight years “to encourage thousands of fresh new audience to appreciate symphonic music.” He closed by thanking the NSO himself and saying: “Usually and above all, I will miss the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of our country – just the best.”

Last week Trump announced his plans to close the Board of Trustees in the Kennedy Center, including the chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein. He said that the board “has not shared our vision of a golden age in art and culture.”

Folds’s remark coincides with today’s news that Trump was officially elected as the new chairman of the center (via The New York Times). He is also called Richard Grenell – former ambassador in Germany during the first term of Trump – the interim -executive director of the center, and fulfilled the board with loyalists such as Staff Chef Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance.