Russian conductor Tugan Sohiev announced today that he was stepping down as director of the Balsoi Theater in Moscow and the Toulouse Capitol National Orchestra amid pressure to “take a stand” on the war in Ukraine.
“I know that many were waiting for me to speak and make known my position on what is happening at the moment” in Ukraine, “he wrote in a statement sent by his agent to Agence France-Presse. “First of all, I must say the most important thing: I have never supported and I will always be against any conflict, in any form,” he stressed.
The fact that “some people question my desire for peace and believe that I, as a musician, could talk about anything other than peace on our planet, finds it shocking and offensive,” he added.
Sohiev, originally from Ossetia and considered one of the most important conductors of the new generation, also states that “he can not witness the way in which his colleagues, artists, actors, singers, dancers, directors, are threatened, are treated with disrespect and fall victim to a ‘culture of annulment’ “.
“I am asked to choose one cultural tradition and not another (…) I will soon be asked to choose between Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Shostakovich on the one hand and Beethoven, Brahms and Debussy on the other. “This is already happening in Poland, a European country where Russian music is banned.”
“Faced with the impossible choice of choosing between my favorite Russian and French musicians, I decided to resign as music director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Toulouse Capitol National Orchestra,” he explained.
“We, the musicians, are here to remind Shostakovich’s music of the horrors of war. We, the musicians, are ambassadors of peace. “Instead of using us and our music to unite nations and peoples, we are divided and exiled,” he concluded.
Source: News Beast
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