Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Toronto Symphony cancels Valentina Lisitsa

I am all for freedom of speech, although I must admit that I don't know exactly what she said and how far she went. People are free to respond on social media if they don't agree, so I don't think music should suffer. All who wanted to see her must be terribly disappointed.
But we have seen similar examples before, as some have pointed out in this thread.

Freedom of speech is different from getting a gig.

She is free to say whatever she wants on the internet. That's her freedom.

The Toronto Symphony is free to set its own programming. That's its freedom. Sounds like the symphony fulfilled its contractual obligation, which is the decent thing to do.

I think performing organizations that support artists of many different political backgrounds probably get the best art, but hey, I'm free to attend whatever performing organizations I most want to support. That's my freedom, and yours, as audience members.

Unfortunately Toronto is famous again...and just when our mayor got replaced too....

I'm sure the audience won't be disappointed with the substitute anyway.

Stewart Goodyear is playing Rach 2 instead!

I never heard of him but he has Columbia Artists management so he must be good.

If I were in Valentina's shoes here's what'd be going through my mind:

"I had a right to speak up on the political situation in my homeland; I had a duty.

But I never expected it would blow up in my face like this.

I am a dissident, yes, but I am a pianist first. And I derive my living from being able to give performances with orchestras. I still have a huge mortgage to pay off after contracting with the London Symphony to record the Rachmaninoff cycle. If I cannot get engagements because I spoke out I cannot support my family and my art. I risk losing my home. I must make a decision. Do I continue to speak out and be blackballed by other orchestras because of pressures put on them by pro-Russian groups who hate me? Do I expose my family to retaliation, possibly harm?"

In the end, my opinion for what it's worth is that she should quietly back down and pursue her art, thus removing her family from danger and allowing her to resume her career making beautiful music and making money so that she can pay the bills. She should leave the dissenting to the pros.

Well, I recently had a small email exchange with one famous music critic.

I sent out an email to them to get my project (and CD) "Beauty & Hope in the 21st Century" reviews and got a negative reply. After a small hit towards all contemporary music ("We and our readers seem to prefer dead composers"), and a small discussion over email, it came that the title was what turned the music critic of!

He said that "he is completely uninterested in the opinion of artists about the state of the world and that he doesn't believe that they have any special insight (or intelligence) in this regard, and also that he is really turned off by any claim to the contrary."

In that sense apparently Valentina should shut up and play.

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The obvious answer is that you get what you deserve ultimately. She should know that getting into this would get her in trouble. After all there is a reason why political and racial talk is not allowed in the forums: they bring lots of heat and hatred.

Of course under closer inspection one should separate her attempt to get the "truth" out, as opposed to what western media does and her hatred talk (for which she was accused). I haven't read all of her tweets, as I rarely use it (and should start using it more), so I can't comment further on that.

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But what I can comment on is that Toronto Symphony is harming their own body rather than Valentina!

Wow, check out this quote from the article. I really, really feel sorry for Zimmerman, the way he was treated was not fair at all:

IMHO She can. Concerts are for the music, not for the beliefs any of the performers. Let's keep art and politics separate, just as we should separate politics from religion.

All I know is that the situation is far more nuanced and complicated than it might seem at first glance. My own views are definitely shaped by western American media so I was quite surprised myself to find my very own piano teacher (Ukrainian) was not immediately anti-Russian. Instead, she was wary and suspicious of Putin, but almost equally suspicious of the Ukrainians and wasn't quite sure what to do about a very real problem and very real persecution that the media here is not reporting because it makes for a neater story to peg the whole thing on a warmongering Putin, whom people are right to generally question.

She herself is natively bilingual in both languages. Now, we don't talk too much politics over piano but I do subscribe to VL's Twitter feed and began to notice it filling up with political statements, most of which were in Russian so it was somewhat hard to suss out what she was trying to convey. Eventually, it was clearer.

All I'm left with is the fact that the only two Ukrainians who I had occasion to pay attention to prior to the crisis both hold independent political views on it that run rather contrary to the standard narrative, and instead believe it to be much more complicated than others believe it to be. My teacher is not on Twitter and knows nothing of VL's opinions.

When that happens, it signals to me that perhaps I am not as well-informed as I would hope myself to be and that I may be unwittingly accepting a certain amount of intrinsic bias as objectivity. That's when I take a step back and let myself be open to a wider source of information.

I don't, however, have a good sense of what Hakki means by his statement that the industry is controlled by a "certain community."

I think I understand what is meant, but I really hope I don't.

Regarding whether or not the TSO have a right to cancel Lisitsa - yes, of course they do. Regarding whether or not Lisitsa has the right to voice her political opinions - yes, of course she does.

In every conflict there is injustice from both sides - one side is the instigator of course, but then it descends into chaos if not stopped, and basically what the general public from each side wants is peace, but they can only see that peace will work on their own terms. All of this is pretty well known from all past experience of conflict. So we can't expect Lisitsa, who is from the region, not to have an opinion, and in having that opinion we can't expect her not to share it.

What I'm not sure about is the exact motivation for the cancellation -

is it because they disagree with her views, or is it because they disagree with her voicing her views whatever they may be?

Could they have booked her in good conscience and not suffered?

Did they decide that after all they didn't like her playing, and tied it up with her political views to have her sacked from the gig?

Is there someone on the committee who is diametrically opposed to her views and so feel that they can't have her playing?

Should there be a campaign to allow her to play? Would she really want to play if she were to be reinstated?

It's such a mess isn't it.

There's a certain difference with the political statements made by Pollini and Zimerman, as well as the Klinghoffer situation, compared to VL's case. First, she is not making political statements in the concert hall (as far as I know, at least). And as far as I'm aware, there has been no loud public protests in Toronto from people saying she should not be allowed to perform due to her views. She has faced small-sized protests every now and then, just as Gergiev, Netrebko, Spivakov and a number of others - but just as with Gergiev and the others, it seems that the protests have been somewhat limited and have not affected ticket sales in any way. Gergiev still has sold-out concerts, and I'm sure VL does, too.

What we seem to have here is a decision made by a very limited number of people inside the administration of TSO, which does not correlate with public consensus on the matter. VL keeps playing all over the place in spite of her public opinions. Someone just asked whether there has been a 'campaign' to allow her to play - ironically, the hashtag #letvalentinaplay became popular very quickly...I'm not so sure other ensembles will follow suit, as there has been quite a bit of negative publicity for TSO because of this.

i for one cannot divorce the artist from their explicitly stated political views, since we are, after all, the sum of our parts. if, for example, i know an artist to be (or have unrepentantly been) an overt racist, i cannot listen to that person's music without awareness of that fact. this is in large part why i don't listen to wagner.

Brendan, I think, as usual, you're spot on. Performing artists, just like anyone else, should be free to say what they want - but also prepared to face the consequences.

She's evidently published some things which are simply beyond the pale, if this link this link is to be believed. I do think the board of the Toronto Symhpony overreacted, but it's worth questioning what would have happened if Lisitsa had made anti-Russian/anti-Putin tweets with the same tone. I'd wager losing a concert engagement in Russia would have been the least of her worries.

Btw, I just happened to be listening to Lisitsa's two disc recording of the music of Phillip Glass over the weekend. The playing is fine, as for the music...

My wife just alerted me to this tempest-in-a-teapot: front page of the Toronto Globe and Mail, which is our national newspaper.

PREAMBLE

I agree with everything said above. My specific quibble, as a dyed-in-the-wool, born-and-raised Torontonian (a rare species) is that with all the money in this country, and in this city, we still can't AFFORD top notch classical artists, or a top notch symphony orchestra.

Only in Canada, you say?

Well, English Canada, anyway. Quebec (that's 1/3 of the country, which is mainly French-speaking) seems to out-spend us on all cultural fronts. For example, the best orchestra in the country, for years, was the Montreal Symphony, under Dutoit: great orchestra, made possible by commitment and serious MONEY from the Quebec government.

We don't do that in English Canada, where culture, life, existence = hockey.

THE ISSUE AT HAND

Now that preamble actually has something to do with the issue at hand.

The TSO admin is, and always has been, the playpen of a tiny Toronto elite. But that board is small, relatively poor, and quite powerless in most domains. This orchestra is strapped for cash, and has been since inception. Sports (hockey in particular) completely outstrips the "classical music" scene in this fair city. One could say the same of Chicago, New York, or L.A., but the fact is that MUCH MORE MONEY is sunk into the classical music scene in these towns than we are likely ever to see spent in the land of Glenn Gould.

Against our rather strapped TSO admin pit the the Candian-Ukrianian community. It is HUGE both in Canada and in Toronto. And it is also a big chunk of the classical music audience (what there is of it) in Toronto. So, no contest. The decision in that narrow sense was a no-brainer.

Philosophically, I would have preferred the TSO to have said, "We're going ahead, notwithstanding the controversy." But they're not a world-class orchestra (sue me); as I said, they're just hanging in there, year to year. Taking the high road, so to speak, would have been too risky.

Re the comment about Wagner. I sympathize, even if I'm and adherent of the "Hanslick" line: that music, in its "essence" (OK we can debate the meaning of that word) has nothing to do with politics. In Israel it is certainly still a perennial issue. And quite understandably. If I had lived--or more precisely--survived the Holocaust, I'm not sure I'd be happy to listen to anything by Wagner.

But should the Israeli Philharmonic be prevented from playing, say, Wagner's Siegfried Idyll? I don't think so.

BTW, from a purely musical standpoint, I'd personally much rather listen to Goodyear--terrific pianist--than Valentina. But that's not the point, obviously.

Hank, many thanks for providing this link. At least for me, it puts the entire incident in a much clearer perspective. I, for one, wrongly presumed that Ms. Lisitsa was supportive of the pro-West Ukrainian nationalists, many of whom are VERY anti-Russian. The fact that she is actually very much in alliance with the pro-Russian contingent certainly puts her at odds with the US/European Western bloc. I invite the Canadians on this site to chime in here, but I believe that there is a sizable Ukrainian community in Toronto -- one that has sufficient influence to exert pressure on the TSO. That's different from here in the US, where there is no concentration of influence (at least, none that I'm aware of). This strikes me as similar to the derailing of the Klinghoffer opera in NYC, where there is heavy pro-Jewish influence.

If this is all true, then at least I'd have to soften my language regarding the TSO. As others have indicated, Ms. Lisitsa is clearly NOT a "wounded fawn" in these proceedings. At the same time, I continue to have a bad feeling about arts organizations simply canceling artists and/or events in response to highly partisan groups with (evidently) lots of political and financial clout. It just feels to me like bullies are allowed to win, with no evident attempt at pushback.

I've been waiting a while to jump into this thread, and I am going to head straight for the deep end.

One thing that some persons [economists] would ask about the bigger picture here is if the way music is financed in 2015 has something to do with it having only 3% - 4% of the private music market. I'm not saying it does or doesn't, but it seems like a legitimate subject to explore. Maybe not having to compete with anyone for survival will take the wind out of almost any business' efficiency, marketing acumen and creativity, and effort to be competitive, leading it toward the precipice. Just compare the present financial issues of the U.S. Postal Service with how U.P.S. and FedEx are performing and how they have grown over the years.

Maybe there is something to this . . . or not . . .

What you have to understand though, is that Euromaidanpress is a propaganda outlet of sorts - they can claim that VL posts "disinformation and vulgar polemics", but I can cite articles by Euromaidanpress that are not true, too. I'd prefer the discussion to stay out of this specific political situation however, but better read VL's original tweets rather than some cherry-picking made in this article.

Not trying to endorse photos she posted juxtaposing African villagers with Ukrainians, but perhaps read the article she was refering to, I'm including a google translate version below. The point made, if I didn't misunderstand anything, was that the school in Odessa that she referred to "strongly recommended" students to wear Ukrainian national clothes at the opening ceremonies. I for one would be quite appalled if I was "strongly recommended" to wear national Swedish clothes, whatever that is, at an opening ceremony like that. Keep in mind that a lot of people in Odessa have close ties to Russia, and some have voiced pro-Russian views very clearly. Remember that last year in May, there were clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russians, and over 40 pro-Russians were killed/burned to death, trapped inside a building, while police/rescuers did little to stop anyone. In such a context, strongly recommending students to wear national costumes seems almost a form of intimidation towards those that have pro-Russian leanings.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftimer-odessa.net%2Fnews%2Fdress_kod_ot_oga_na_kollegiyu_pedagogov_tol_ko_v_vishivankah_149.html&edit-text=


Original article:

http://timer-odessa.net/news/dress_kod_ot_oga_na_kollegiyu_pedagogov_tol_ko_v_vishivankah_149.html