Russian conductor barred from German music festival - World Socialist Web Site
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Musique et (géo)politique, donc
Russian conductor barred from German music festival
By Verena Nees
21 November 2014
The internationally renowned conductor Valery Gergiev has been barred from participating in the Saarland Music Festival in 2015, because he is Russian and has expressed support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Although Gergiev is scheduled to conduct the same concert in Paris on March 9, he will not be allowed to perform it in Saarland with the Munich Philharmonic on the following day. Festival manager Robert Leonardy sought to justify this action by referring to opposition from the Polish embassy, the November 9 online edition of the German tabloid Bild reported.
According to Bild, Leonardy said, “we received a clear message from the Polish Embassy in Berlin, that Gergiev’s presence is not desirable. ... It is really impossible for a Russian well known to be a friend of Putin to appear there.”