A Ukrainian-born pianist was barred from playing at Canada\u2019s Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) for expressing views on the situation in Ukraine via Twitter, according to the soloist herself. The move led to a social media storm tagged #LetValentinaPlay.<\/p>\n
The orchestra has officially announced its decision to drop pianist Valentina Lisitsa from its Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 program earlier this week. TSO President and CEO Jeff Melanson cited \u201congoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets,\u201d adding that Lisitsa\u2019s \u201cprovocative comments\u201d had allegedly \u201covershadowed past performances.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the statement, Melanson seems to be referring to Lisitsa\u2019s Twitter posts, in which she expresses her views on the situation in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Lisitsa turned to Facebook on Monday with a plea, asking her fans for support to \u201ctell Toronto Symphony that music can\u2019t be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone in the orchestra top management, likely after the pressure from a small but aggressive lobby claiming to represent Ukrainian community, has made a decision that I should not be allowed to play,\u201d she wrote, referring to her TSO performances on Wednesday and Thursday. \u201cI don\u2019t even know who my accusers are, I am kept in the dark about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitsa said she took to Twitter to shed some light on the other side of the story, \u201cthe one you never see in the mainstream media \u2013 the plight of my people, the good and bad things that were happening in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Some of her work included translating Ukrainian-language websites and eyewitness accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI became really good in unmasking fakes published by Western media,\u201d Lisitsa said.<\/p>\n
Her statement also gives a brief summary on her actual views: \u201cThe worst thing that can happen to any country is fratricide war, people seeing each other, their neighbors as enemies to be eliminated \u2026[a] Year later, we have the same rich people remaining in power, misery and poverty everywhere, dozens of thousands killed, over a million of refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n
After expressing her views, Lisitsa claimed to have received numerous death threats.<\/p>\n
The last straw was the decision to drop her performance: \u201cMy haters didn\u2019t stop there. Trying, in their own words, to teach me a lesson, they have now attempted to silence me as a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitsa revealed that TSO offered to cover her entire fee for the canceled program, if she chose to stay silent about the reason behind the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey even threatened me against saying anything about the cause of the cancellation \u2026 If they do it once, they will do it again and again, until the musicians, artists are intimidated into voluntary censorship,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
The reaction on Twitter was massive, with the hashtag #LetValentinaPlay surging in popularity and thousands of supporters speaking out.<\/p>\n
International concert violinist and recording artist Hannah Woolmer tweeted: \u201cTo me, this IS a VITAL campaign pls can all my followers retweet if they agree that @TorontoSymphony should #letvalentinaplay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seventy-two-year old Hana Ustohal wrote on Facebook: \u201cWhat kind of monsters are in power of this country to make such an insane and sadistic decision to not allow you to play. I\u2019ve cancelled my ticket for Wednesday concert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twitter user Ike Hike warned that the TSO\u2019s decision \u201clooks bad,\u201d adding: \u201cWould you seek fame as silencing art for partisan politics and smear Canada? You should #letvalentinaplay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitsa maintained on her Twitter account that she does not mix music with politics, and does not \u201cpreach\u201d during performances. Her opponents, however, accused her of being a \u201cKremlin mouthpiece\u201d and a \u201chate monger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maria Kolos wrote on Facebook, supporting the TSO\u2019s decision: \u201cThank you TSO for not tolerating this offensive Kremlin mouthpiece.\u201d Mat Babyak also said: \u201cThank you for not giving a platform to a racist hate monger! Keep her out of Canada!\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitsa has a substantial following on YouTube and Twitter. One of her most popular videos \u2013 Beethoven\u2019s \u2018Moonlight Sonata\u2019 \u2013 has over 9 million views. Due to her successful online career, she is sometimes referred to as \u201cthe web\u2019s favorite pianist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her career was successfully launched through a YouTube channel, which now has received around 43 million visitors. Lisitsa now travels around the world performing classical pieces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Ukrainian-born pianist was barred from playing at Canada\u2019s Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) for expressing views on the situation in Ukraine via Twitter, according to the soloist herself. The move led to a social media storm tagged #LetValentinaPlay. The orchestra has officially announced its decision to drop pianist Valentina Lisitsa from its Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 … Continue reading “Witch hunt against Ukraine-born pianist over anti-Kiev posts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[1017,11394,7637,11393,2015,11395,7484,11392],"class_list":["post-18334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-canada","tag-classical-music","tag-kiev","tag-pianist","tag-toronto","tag-tso","tag-ukraine","tag-valentina"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18335,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18334\/revisions\/18335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}