Kennedy Center loses National Symphony Orchestra director to major L.A. performance center

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The tumult continues at the John F.Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, Jean Davidson, steps down from her role to become executive director and chief executive of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Davidson will assume her new position May 4, the Wallis announced Friday.Davidson is not new to L.A., having served as the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Music Center from 2015 to 2023.She left the Master Chorale for the NSO in Washington, D.C., where she worked for two years until President Trump began his controversial takeover of the Kennedy Center, firing its board and installing himself as chairman.

Major artist defections ensued, culminating with a board vote to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center in December and February’s surprise announcement that the center would close for two years for renovations, beginning July 4.“I’ve learned a lot in the last three years, and I think it’s no secret that it’s been a hard year,” Davidson told The Times, adding that the politicization of the Kennedy Center was a factor in her decision-making.“I had intended to stay through the [orchestra’s] 100th anniversary in 2031, but found it more and more difficult to achieve the goals that we had set out to achieve given the external forces that are at work that are just so far beyond my control.”It seemed like “I had reached a natural ending point,” she said.Enough cannot be said about the singing, the dancing, the costume and production design and more in William Kentridge’s chamber opera, in which noted intellectuals and artists flee 1941 France.With the imminent closure of the Kennedy Center, speculation has swirled around the NSO’s future, especially in light of the Washington National Opera’s decision in January to cut ties with the storied venue,...