(Moscow) Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev announced on Sunday that he had left his post as musical director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse, saying he was under pressure to take a stand on events in Ukraine.
Posted at 3:47 p.m.
“I know that many people were waiting for me to speak out and make my position known on what is happening at the moment” in Ukraine, he wrote in a press release sent by his agent.
“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”.
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 in a disrespectful way and victims of the “culture of cancellation””.
“I am asked to choose one cultural tradition over another. […] I will soon 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 laments.
“Faced with the impossible option of choosing between my beloved Russian and French musicians, I have decided to resign from my duties as musical director of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse (in the south -west of France, editor’s note) with immediate effect, ”he explains.
“We, musicians, are there to recall through the music of Shostakovich 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 said.