Another Russian maestro faces an ultimatum
NewsThe Mayor of Toulouse has written to the conductor Tugan Sokiev, asking him to say a few words on the Ukraine situation before his next concert with the Orchester du Capitole on March 18.
Sokhiev has confirmed he intends to conduct on that date.
However, he has not replied yet to the Mayor’s request.
His other job is as music director of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Toulouse is a twin city of Kyiv.
Conflict of interests?
“There’s nothing, Tolouse.”
The jok for the teams in rugby who have to play against Toulouse’s team. The city has maybe the biggest club in the world and a good orchestra.
Tugan Sokiev did a fantastic work in Toulouse and the french public not only in South-West and the press liked very much what he did artisticly in France. But like Gergiev he has to talk and to be franck. I understand the position of the mayor.
Poor mayor. What a shameful request.
Yes, how dare he ask the MD of his city’s orchestra to speak out against war crimes which have caused over a million woman and children to flee their country all because a deluded thug wants to re-create the Soviet Union circa 1975. What a shameful post in support of a brutal dictator.
Sokiev is also scheduled to conduct at the Salzburg Easter Festival.
He did the Waldbhune’s concert also few years ago with the BPO.
He conducted the Berlin Phil quite frequently,also at the beginning of the current season.And the Concertgebouw too.Fantastic conductor….IMHO,far better than Gergiev.
Sokhiev is another conductor who can walk away from Russia, have plenty of work, and will be treated like a hero. Just like Vassily Petrenko.
I suppose it partly depends on whether these conductors have families and where they are located.
Petrenko is a British citizen. He made his choice years ago.
And although born in Leningrad and raised Russian, Petrenko is a Ukrainian name, so his ancestry is there — I have no idea how recently.
Maybe he doesn’t want to walk away. Do you realise that there are people who love their country. And Russia is not Putin, remember.
Kiev has so many “twins,” it’s more like septuplets.
I really hope Tugan does the right thing. He is an extremely fine conductor and I would hate for his career outside Russia to end in ignominy like Gergiev’s.
And the same should be sought from Vadim Repin, due to perform in Annapolis this week.
I just checked the dates of the Maryland Hall in Annapolis MD and Strathmore Music Center in Rockville MD and don’t see Repin’s name
He was supposed to perform Shostakovich VC I guess with Annapolis symphony orchestra.
No idea who canceled it- the orchestra or Repin himself.
The dates were on his website but as I said nothing on the venues websites.
I will be stubborn and ask again: why are we not talking about Courrentzis? Because of the country of birth? He is more connected to State money then Sokhiev.
I’m also wondering why Currentzis is not faced with a statement. So far I don’t see that his concerts are cancelled in Europe. He is scheduled to give concerts with musicAeterna. This orchestra recruits its members to approx. 95% from Russia. Double standards or forgotten because he is a Greek?
Please, help me raise up this issue, write to his manager as well as to venues they are scheduled to perform.
MusicAeterna must have all schengen visas revoked.
They and Correntzis have all profited from vast amounts of corrupt Russian government money, which is where his vast overblown PR machine was honed.
Correntzis is so corrupt he will never criticise his Russian paymasters.
Send them all home and strand Correntzis without musicians.
It’s the only way this corrupt sycophantic cult figure will get the message
Having personal experience with Correntzis in PERM, can vouch for the fact his entire PR campaign was financed by Russian money.
The guy is corrupt up to his eyeballs.
Send him and !*!)$ orchestra back to Russia.
Revoke all the Schengen visas of all the Russian musicians forthwith and revoke Correntzis’ EU passport, so he is obliged to eat the crap he dealt out in Perm.
The guy is a nasty piece of work, thoroughly corrupt and a gold digger.
He is not. MusicAeterna has been privately financed since 2019. That’s when Currentzis left Perm for Saint Petersburg. One of the main reasons was because local politicians refused to give funds for a scheduled production of Berg’s “Lulu”, apparently deemed to provocative and not attractive enough for the local audiences, at least in the long run.
Sokhiev, on the other hand, is the principal conductor of an opera house that is listed separately in the Federal budget.
Talk about being between a rock and hard place. As someone suggested here, much may depend on Sokiev’s family situation. This is rather different from Gergiev’s situation, where he lots of assets stashed about, and is a member of Putin’s circle. Still, he won’t be able to sit on the fence forever.
I’m a little hesitant about this. If Sokhiev doesn’t show active support for Putin, he could still be reluctant to make a public statement for personal and family reasons. Seems like it’s asking an awful lot of him. Why are we putting him in this position if he hasn’t done anything wrong himself? For all those that think he should be able to do this, how easily would you make a statement publicly that would put you at odds—or possibly even danger—with your family and home country? This cancelling has gone too far.
It will be a sad thing if artists need to make public political statements to be allowed to perform. It’s another thing entirely if they’ve chosen to present bad political opinions publicly, like Gergiev did, which was obviously a bad idea.
I look forward to a rival SlippedDisc 2 , where the discussion is about musicians’ ability, rather than their political views or racial origins. “The Classical Music News Site”????
it’s very simple every Russian who now does not speak against what is happening should be ostricized, like the oligarchs back to russia…I had some sympathy for Putin in the past but the man has gone mad, a sort of boris Godoenov…what do you expect after 22 years in power…that does something with your brain
This reminds me of a Miss Universe competition, where the contestants are forced so say something about war and peace tralalala
There was a day that Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin failed to continue to be able to fully fund the Deutsche Symphonie Orchestra of Berlin without making them trim down their orchestral staff by approximately fifteen, leading their brilliant music director at the time Ingo Metzmacher to resign. Some orchestra patrons at the time, in 2009, were said to be more excited about attending these concerts than with the Deutsche Bank funded Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. as respectable as osme of his work might be. And then DSO Berlin replaced Metzmacher in 2010 with this phoney – Tugan Sokhiev, clearly a Gergiev protege, and having originally come from the same province of Ossetia as Gergiev. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank is serving as a conduit of filthy money coming out of Russia filling the coffers of Donald Trump, while Trump always goes belly-up on his loans from Deutsche Bank, while they had continued to be willing to loan him money to have access to U.S. markets, thereby associating their name with one that generates as much publicity as that of Donald Trump. Need I say more?
Tugan Sokhiev is ten times better than Ingo Metzmacher….Ask any orchestra musicians…Having played under both,Metzmacher is as dull as ditchwater…
I applaud the de Nazification of Ukraine. Ukrainian Nazi collaboration with Hitler including being guards in Auschwitz led to the murder of ethnic Jewish and Orthodox Russians.
What does the Russian invasion of the Ukraine have to do with de Nazification now? Resisting Putin is comparable to resisting the Nazi regime..
That was 80 years ago. The only place that needs “de-nazification” nowadays is the Kremlin.
What does 1943 have to do with modern Ukraine? Do you applaud your 2022 Russian patron who poisons his opponents and throws them out of 5th floor windows and this week bombed the Babi Yar Memorial in Kiev? Save your outrage for the Kremlin murderer.
Gergiev’s close relation to Putin is very obvious and known (as said above, a member of Putin’s circle). I however don’t agree with this witch hunt of every Russian artist who is now forced to speak out in public, artists who haven’t shown any Putin support in the past, who haven’t commented pro-Putin or pro war (yes of course they get state money which you can’t avoid if you’d like to work there, and bring music in your country). Ask them in private and have the conversation, but in our western ‘free’ world is it really justified to force people to speak out in public, possibly bringing themselves and maybe even more their families in Russia in danger?? Most people really don’t realize the current extreme repression in that country. It’s simply dangerous to speak out, and getting more and more dangerous every day. Also Russian musicians working and living in the west can have family in Russia, and they probably would like to be able to return to their homeland some day, when possible again. Let’s not underestimate that, even if you are very strongly against this war and against Putin, it might be extremeley difficult and complex to speak out and know that in a way you’re abandoning your homeland and it’s people (not Putin, but the civilians, your family, friends who are also major victims here), perhaps not being able to return there. Don’t we all say it’s not a war with the Russians, it’s a war with Putin? This situation is not getting better if we force to speak, and we would only enlarge the gap between the Russian people and the west even more.
It’s easy to demand bravery of others.
Sippenhaftung war doch schon einmal .
Music is a universal language, generally bring peace..Let conductors conduct, singers sing, musicians play..
Date: 4th March 2022.
An important aspect is that many international musicians with Russian citizenship have relatives living in the Motherland. If this conductor makes public his misgivings about the brutal assault on Ukraine, reprisals against family members can be expected as a matter of course. Given the volatile situation in Russia – exacerbated by President Putin’s repression of the population – discretion is the greater part of valour, arguably.