IT'S ON!: Toronto Symphony vs Valentina Lisitsa

[snyprrr]

Ukranian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has been let go by the TSO for anti-Kiev tweets. Can someone link, please.

Calling her "racist" and "hate mongering", her critics say she can play in Moscow. Supporters have cancelled subscriptions. BAM!!

Only reporting the new, am I.

[Todd]

You're late to the party.  Check the Classical Chat thread.

[Scion7]

Ukranian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has been let go by the TSO for anti-Kiev tweets ...

Yeah, I just watched her RTV (unbiased, of course!  ) interview.
I guess she's more ethnic Russian and from East-Ukraine - where Russians outnumber the Ukrainians in their own country.
She lives in SC and I spoke to her once back in 2011 - just barely - her Slavic accent is very hard for me to make her out a lot of the time.
She may have toned down her rhetoric and kept her opinions to herself since getting burned so bad over this?

[Ken B]

Ukranian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa has been let go by the TSO for anti-Kiev tweets. Can someone link, please.

Calling her "racist" and "hate mongering", her critics say she can play in Moscow. Supporters have cancelled subscriptions. BAM!!

Only reporting the new, am I.

This is old news but I detest politicizing everything, as I belive the TSO did here. She didn't peddle her nonsense on stage after all. The TSO relies on grants and patrons. I hope they lose both. I could live with them disappearing, pour encourager les autres.

[mc ukrneal]

This is old news but I detest politicizing everything, as I belive the TSO did here. She didn't peddle her nonsense on stage after all. The TSO relies on grants and patrons. I hope they lose both. I could live with them disappearing, pour encourager les autres.

Oh god, not again...

[Ken B]

Oh god, not again...

Not what again Neal? Opinions you don't share? So annoying, aren't they.

[mc ukrneal]

Not what again Neal? Opinions you don't share? So annoying, aren't they.

Now now. No need to get snarky. We already had this argument - you can read about it in that other thread.

[Scion7]

when I search for the "other thread" I get nuthin' - oh, well

[mc ukrneal]

when I search for the "other thread" I get nuthin' - oh, well

It was either the unimportant news or classical chat thread. One of those.

[North Star]

when I search for the "other thread" I get nuthin' - oh, well

It was either the unimportant news or classical chat thread. One of those.

:

You're late to the party.  Check the Classical Chat thread.

If you really must.

[Monsieur Croche]

BUMP: really learned of this, 'now.'

I think here and in the few bits of press copy on thi I've just read, everyone has missed the point.

An artist working within, or as guest soloist with, an ensemble who makes public any comments which are at all 'heated' -- socio-political, religious, etc. -- those comments or opinions then become known to their colleagues and become an agent of upset among those in the ensemble. [Audience not liking the comments is next in chain, while audience and the revenue they generate is of prime importance.]

That creates an Elephant in the room in the workplace. If the opinions or statements are enough to even slightly upset one or more professional colleagues an atmosphere of divisiveness then promotes some ill will and settles in.

Anything like that, even a small dose, is toxic and antithetical to the well-understood tacit agreement that all ensemble members, including guest soloists, go out of their way to hold their piece in order that peace and harmony are the constant norm.

These people have to play together figuratively and literally "In Concert."

The moment someone does not comply with the tacit agreement as to no disruption in or around the working ensemble, the ensemble game -- what any ensemble is about and must have to be comfortable and work as one -- is blown away.

She was fired then, not for her actual opinions but because making those opinions so publicly and widely known made her a disruptive presence in an ensemble, thereby undoing that requisite solidarity of any ensemble -- even if she was but a guest soloist. She made the workplace atmosphere toxic, and there isn't a quick-fix air freshener for that. Time to go, then.

How that can happen with this piano player I think is attributable to her profile. Lisitsa is an internet phenom. I would readily wager that if we could compare her C.V. with other concert pianists in her same age group, Lisitsa's C.V. would be more a contrast, i.e. the number of public solo recitals, amount of accompanying and chamber work done, and solo performances with orchestras would pale in comparison to the experience her age peers have accumulated to date. She is more than a little green in all these areas, has worked with people and ensembles far less than usual, so has not picked up on those set and conventionally understood tacit working agreements.

Used to the internet, having used it extensively to self-promote, herself not aware, or not thinking about it, that it might just be best not to post via social media just anything from the top of your head to your fans, lol.