The program was scheduled to start the concert with
Such Places as Memory
, by Fernando Buide.
But the Cuenca public was surprised this Thursday when the Ukrainian anthem sounded.
This was decided by the Russian director Dima Slobodeniouk, head of the Galician Symphony Orchestra.
It was their first performance on the tour commemorating their 30th anniversary and which will also take them this weekend to the National Auditorium in Madrid.
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The war crushes Russian culture
The invasion of Ukraine has greatly affected the musicians and the director, who has also been outside his country of origin for 30 years.
That is why he wanted, together with the interpreters, to start with that gesture before addressing a program in which
Geminis
from
Esa-Pekka Salonen
and Stravinsky's
The Firebird
.
"Our program this week, which includes music by Spanish, Finnish and Russian composers, should serve to show that people of different nationalities can and should coexist without humiliating themselves," the director said on Twitter.
"That is also our mission as artists and we will not give up our efforts to enrich the lives of our audience and thus help prevent this type of cowardly, offensive and uncivilized acts."
Dima Slobodeniouk thus joins the rejection that Putin's war has aroused in several artists from his country and other directors such as Semyon Bychkov.
She has raised her voice and put the instruments of the orchestra in which she has been against barbarism for ten years.
Not so, Valeri Gergiev, who has unwaveringly supported the Russian president.