War In Ukraine: Bolshoi Music Director Resigns – The HuffPost

“I know a lot of people were waiting for me to speak up and make my position known on what is happening right now” in Ukrainehe wrote in a press release sent by his agent to AFP.

“First of all, I have to say the most important thing: I never supported and I always will against any conflict in any form,” he says. 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”.

“We are divided and ostracized”

Considered one of the greatest of the young generation, this leader of Ossetian origin – an ethnicity 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, Stravinsky², 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 musicians russian and beloved French people, I have decided to resign from my functions 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 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 says indignantly.