MOSCOW, 8 Jun. Valentina Lisitsa commented on the cancellation of her concert at a music festival in Lerici, Italy, due to the pianist's attitude to the situation in Donbass. She shared the details with.
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"Everything is as usual. Under «pressure» anonymous activists of the city authorities, in this case from the mayor's office, demand that I «condemn», dissociate myself, oppose, and so on. In case of my refusal, they order the director of the festival to cancel the concert,” said Valentina Lisitsa.
Leonardo Paoletti, press secretary of the mayor of Lerici, asked the pianist’s agent to condemn the SVO.
According to Valentina Lisitsa, she is already used to such situations.
“I used to write back, troll a little, condemning the aggression of the United States, of which I am still a citizen. And now I’m just tired,” she shared.
As Lisitsa noted, she answered her agent that she was not going to obey the mayor's demands. The pianist recalled that Lerici is a small beautiful resort town with a population of nine thousand people who live off tourism in the summer. And the festival is part of the tourist season.
Valentina Lisitsa clarified that the show would pay her compensation for the canceled concert in the amount of the agreed fee. At the same time, she noted that «the city will lose income from tourists who would have come to the concert, having paid for tickets, would have set aside money in restaurants and hotels.»
The musician said that after the announcement of the cancellation of the performance, strangers began to write to her with words of support. She also received messages from haters, but there are fewer of them.
«Four — five against a hundred in support,» Lisitsa clarified.
Valentina Lisitsa was born in Kiev. In 1991 she moved to the USA. It became known to a wide audience thanks to the YouTube channel. Since 2015, the pianist has been coming to Donetsk with concerts, and in September 2021 she received a DPR passport. In May 2022, she performed in Mariupol in honor of Victory Day.
Earlier it was reported that at the music festival in Lerici, at the request of the mayor, the concert of Valentina Lisitsa was canceled. The event was scheduled for July 22.