Open Letter Regarding NSO

Hi all.

As you might know, I spent nearly a decade at the Kennedy Center as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra.  I resigned in February 2025, but I stay in contact with my friends who remained. And I’d like to draw attention to something that has flown under the radar as the drama surrounding the Kennedy Center unfolds.

    ⁃    Our National Symphony Orchestra is in real trouble - it may not survive.
    ⁃    There’s currently no plan or solution in sight to save the organization.
    ⁃    The public can turn the tide with overwhelming support.

Currently there’s no announcement for programming for the NSO’s upcoming season.  All other orchestras have announced theirs by now because planning is always about 18 months ahead of performances. The NSO doesn't even know if it has a home, given the previously announced two-year closure of the Kennedy Center. This is a very bad sign. Further, the tools for survival are entangled in the Kennedy Center's legal and financial troubles. Tools such as the NSO's endowment fund which is tied to a bank note. 

We all probably know there was a recent court ruling to remove the illegal addition of Trump's name on the building and to restore political independence to the Kennedy Center.  This is good but not the time for a victory lap because it’s going to be a long messy process to get this all back to a healthy situation.

 

US DISTRICT COURT RULING: https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv4480-50

The NSO doesn’t have the luxury of time as it’s been suffocated by the financial turmoil that resulted from the presidential takeover.

What can we do for now?

This is just my list, but I suspect it can make a difference.

First:

Note an important Instagram account to follow: @nso_musicians

Fans of orchestra music and the arts: It’s time for an outpouring of public support and love for our nation's symphony orchestra.  Whether you’ve had the opportunity to see them perform or not, the existence of a National Symphony is a gift, and we have one of the best in the world.  They have been showing up regardless of the undignified partisan drama, the dwindling audiences, and staff reductions.  We can show up for them now by just following and showing the world we have their backs. Comment publicly.  Write to them personally.  They’re in hell and they needn’t be alone.

Journalists: Please cover the NSO in your stories. The removal of Trump’s name takes up all the oxygen. The building will likely survive. The institution will heal.  But when you disperse the NSO's 96 talented musicians and render them unemployed, we will lose something that is not so easily replaceable.

Donors: As it all unfolds, I suspect the NSO will need a lot of support to get back on its feet. Right now, they’re in purgatory and it's unclear what might help, but be in touch with them.

Citizens: Let your congresspeople know we demand safeguards against this ever happening again to the Kennedy Center or any of our federal arts institutions.  We need enforced independence for our arts from politics, so that there can be trust again - trust that artists and audiences of all walks can exchange ideas and art in an apolitical environment.  Further, we need Congress and the Kennedy Center Board to create guidelines requiring any future director of the Kennedy Center to have actual experience in arts administration.  We can now see what happens when an inept director who doesn’t know this business and spends time attacking people and artists who displease him or the President. Audiences and artists go elsewhere.  So much for running the Kennedy Center like it was any other commercial venue.  

A year after resigning from the Kennedy Center, it still hurts that I had to leave. During Trump’s first term, he stayed out of the Kennedy Center’s business, allowing his Board’s appointees to work in the spirit of cooperation for the good of the Center with the rest of us in a politically free environment.  That all changed after he came back into office.  I would have loved to stay on, but any artist such as myself who associated with the newly politicized Kennedy Center risked being used as a political pawn, implicitly siding with the POTUS's politics by association. I wouldn’t have done that for either party. And my role was curatorial.  How could I ask an artist to come perform there, putting themselves in danger of displeasing the President or a Kennedy Center director and finding themselves under attack from the right wing?

ARTICLE ON ARTIST HARRASSMENT: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kennedy-center-union-investigation-yasmin-williams-heckling-1235438829/ (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kennedy-center-union-investigation-yasmin-williams-heckling-1235438829/)

Alternatively, how could I ask artists to come play but be careful what you say, finding themselves under attack from the left wing for implicitly siding with a politicized Kennedy Center?  It was an impossible situation, and artists and audiences alike learned this the hard way over the past year. The result is now so bad that a federal judge had to intervene.  

The members of the NSO were in a different position. There was nothing to gain from their resignation, except simple unemployment.  They’ve remained apolitical.  They’ve been performing their butts off in that awful situation.  The National Opera took a different approach and left the Center, but that has presented its own perils.

I’ve been saying for years that the symphony orchestra institution was itself a symbol of civilization.  For us to strive to work together for the greater good, we need to see that in action, and symphony orchestras do this every night.  It’s an important symbol and when the symphony erodes, that’s the sounding of an alarm for the health of actual civilization.  I’ve spouted this from stages in front of most of the orchestras in the country.  Audiences may have tired of hearing it.  But this threat is happening now, and our National Symphony Orchestra needs us.

 

As the politicization of the Kennedy Center makes it very difficult to attract audiences and artists, our methods of support are more limited. But I say, let’s let them know we’re here and ready. Let’s get the word out, even amid the muddy waters of the legal dramas.

 

Otherwise, imagine a free western country, with no National Symphony Orchestra.  It’s real.

Thank you,
Ben Folds