Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev returns to Toulouse
After resigning from his post as musical director of the National Capitol Orchestra, and leaving the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow a few days after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev is making his big comeback to the Halle aux grains de Toulouse this Thursday, November 17 for a concert.
The conductor from Russia, Tugan Sokhiev, returns to Toulouse this Thursday, November 17 for a concert event organized at the Halle aux Grains. He will interpret Symphony number 8 of the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, which he defines in the columns of the Noon dispatch as an “endless…like life” work, and as his love for the Pink City which he decided to leave last March, a few days after Russia launched the war in Ukraine.
Tugan Sokhiev had resigned from the National Capitol Orchestra
Indeed, the musical director of the Orchester national du Capitole had decided to leave office at the beginning of March last. Unable to choose between his “Russian musicians” and his “French musicians”, the conductor had at the same time given up his post at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
A few days earlier, the mayor of Toulouse Jean-Luc Moudenc had Tugan Sokhiev prize for speaking out on the Ukrainian conflict. A request that has never been clearly answered. But he wrote on his social networks: “I need to say the most important thing: I have never supported and I will always be against any conflict, in any form. To question my desire for peace and to think that I, as a musician, could support anything other than peace on our planet, is shocking and offensive.”
Reconnect with a big family
Following the early departure of the musician – whose contract was to end in June 2022 – Jean-Luc Moudenc said he was “sad”, before adding: “We never expected or, worse, required of Tugan that he make a choice between his native country and his city of heart, Toulouse. It wouldn’t have made any sense. However, it was unthinkable to imagine him remaining silent in the face of the war situation, both vis-à-vis the musicians and the public and the community. Tonight, I take those who act that the only party he takes, in conscience and knowingly, is music”.
Today, back in the Pink City precisely to show his passion for music again, Tugan Sokhiev has the impression of renew ties “with a big family”. “Before starting work, I thanked the musicians for their kindness and support; for all the messages they sent me during this very difficult time. And then, I told them that all of that was behind us and that we were there, together, to make music, ”he explains to the local media.