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Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev announced on Sunday that he has left his post as musical director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse. He says he is under pressure to take a stand on events in Ukraine.
“I know that many people were waiting for me to express myself and to make my position known on what is happening at the moment” in Ukraine, he wrote in a press release sent by his agent to AFP.
“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 underlines.
That “some people question my desire for peace and think that I, as a musician, can talk about anything other than peace on our planet is shocking and offensive to me.”
“Cancel culture”
Considered one of the greatest of the young generation, this leader of Ossetian origin – an ethnic group from the Russian Caucasus – still says he cannot “bear to witness the way (his) colleagues, artists, actors, singers, dancers, directors are threatened, treated disrespectfully and victimized by ‘cancellation culture'”.
“I am being asked to choose one cultural tradition over another. (…) Soon I will be asked to choose between Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy. This is already happening in Poland, a European country, where Russian music is banned,” he said.
“Faced with the impossible option of choosing between my beloved Russian and French musicians, I have decided to resign as Music Director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse with immediate effect” , he explains.
“We musicians are there to remember through Shostakovich’s music the horrors of war. We musicians are the ambassadors of peace. Instead of using ourselves and our music to unite nations and peoples , we are divided and ostracized”, he is indignant.