Russian conductor Dugan Chokiv has announced his resignation as music director of the Bolshoi and Orchester National du Capitol de Toulouse in Moscow following events in Ukraine on Sunday. “Conflict in any form”.

“Faced with the impossibility of selecting my beloved Russian and French musicians, I have decided to immediately take up the post of Music Director of the Bolshoi Theater and Orchester National du Capitol de Toulouse in Moscow.”He wrote in a press release sent to Agencies France-Press.

“First, I must say the most important thing: I never support, I will always be against any conflict in any form.”, He points out. That “It shocks and hurts me that some people question my desire for peace and think that as a musician I can speak of anything other than peace on our planet.”.

Considered one of the best of the younger generation, this chef of Ossetian descent – an ethnic group from the Russian Caucasus – says he still can’t “How to be a witness [ses] Colleagues, artists, actors, singers, dancers, directors are threatened, treated with contempt and “cancel the culture”.

“I am asked to choose one cultural tradition over another. (…) I will soon be asked to choose Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy. This is already happening in Poland, a European country where Russian music is banned.”Laments that.

We, the musicians, are there to commemorate the horrors of war through the music of Shostakovich. We musicians are ambassadors of peace. Instead of using ourselves and our music to unite nations and peoples, we are divided and marginalized.