In the wake of Monday’s widely reported news of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s cancellation of two concerts this week with Ukrainian-born piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa, following what have been deemed highly offensive tweets Lisitsa posted about the situation in Ukraine, two additional media stories have been published on the controversy. In Wednesday’s (4/8) Musical Toronto, Michael Vincent speaks to TSO President and CEO Jeff Melanson, who “said that they compiled Ms. Lisitsa’s Tweets into a seven-page document, and asked Ms. Lisitsa to explain them…. Melanson added that she … confirmed that the Tweets were her words, and stood by her right to say them. It was at that point Mr. Melanson said ‘we exercised our right in her contract to remove her from the program with pay.’… Melanson said the document ‘would help people understand … this is not a free speech issue, but rather an issue of someone practicing very intolerant and offensive expression through Twitter.’ ” In Wednesday’s (4/8) Globe and Mail (Toronto), Rupert Everett-Green writes that Lisitsa “says the TSO told her agent a donor threatened to withhold funds if she performed as scheduled…. Mr. Melanson said in a phone interview there was ‘absolutely no donor pressure.’ … The TSO, meanwhile, decided late Tuesday to drop the Rachmaninoff [second piano] concerto from its program in spite of having announced a replacement pianist—Canadian Stewart Goodyear—on Monday. The orchestra is also offering each member of the audience for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s concerts a free ticket to a forthcoming show, and full refunds on demand.”
Posted April 9, 2015
Photo of Valentina Lisitsa by Darren Calabrese / Globe and Mail
