In 2007, she posted her first video on YouTube of herself playing the piano by 2012, she was the most popular pianist on the video-sharing platform, with her clips getting millions of views. A biography on Lisitsa's website said in 2019-20 that she was splitting her time living between Moscow and Rome. After graduating from the conservatory in Kyiv she moved to the United States in 1991 with her partner, fellow pianist Aleksei Kuznetsov, whom she later married. In May 2022, Budapest's Margitsziget Theater canceled a planned performance by Lisitsa, citing the Mariupol appearance and, in December of the same year, an invitation to play at the legendary La Fenice opera house in Venice was withdrawn by the organizers.īorn to a Ukrainian father and a mother of Russian and Polish descent, Lisitsa grew up speaking Russian. A video clip of her playing and her purported rendition of "Victory Day" were used by Russian-backed separatists and pro-Kremlin state media to propagandize for Russian "liberation." The clip's timing, May 9, appeared to be symbolic as it fell on the day that Russia marks its victory in World War II over Nazi Germany, further infuriating Ukraine's defenders on social media. She touted herself as having become adept at "unmasking fakes published by Western media."Ī few months after the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Lisitsa performed under Russian occupation in the devastated southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. accusing "haters" of trying to "silence me as a musician."Īmong other controversial statements, Lisitsa described Ukraine's situation after 2014 as a "civil war" and repeated pro-Kremlin talking points such as the prevalence of "neo-Nazi" elements in Ukraine. Lisitsa's troubles started in 2015, when her concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was canceled after controversial comments she made about the conflict in eastern Ukraine. "The thesis that we should judge the creator by their art and not by their personality is fundamentally important, but not always effective," Licheva said, calling the Sofia Philharmonic's invitations "shameful and immoral." In a time of war, she said, "art must give way to morality." Amelia Licheva, a professor of literature in Sofia, told RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service that she wants recently installed Bulgarian Culture Minister Nayden Todorov, an accomplished musician and conductor who has performed with Lisitsa and still directs the Sofia Philharmonic, to exclude Lisitsa from the April 20 and 23 concerts to celebrate 150 years since the birth of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The move is sparking backlash and calls for her planned performances to be canceled. But not in Bulgaria's capital, where the 53-year-old pianist is expected to play twice in April. Lisitsa remains a charismatic figure through it all, and her worldwide legion of Internet fans will likely welcome this release.SOFIA - After embracing Russia's war on Ukraine, Valentina Lisitsa, a Kyiv-born classical pianist and the self-styled "Queen of Rachmaninoff," has seen her concerts canceled around the world. 66, lacks the sentiment that is necessary to this frequent encore piece. 22, Lisitsa gives herself more breathing room and turns in performances with a good deal of flair, although the final Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op. 61, and the Andante spianato et grand polonaise brillante, Op. In the Polonaise-Fantasie in A flat major, Op. 39, which dissolves into blank figuration in Lisitsa's reading. Her readings are brittle and overly quick sample the main octave passage in the Scherzo No. Of course, she has a lot of competition in the field of Chopin recitals, and in the four Scherzos that open the album, it is not clear that Lisitsa can meet it. How the album was marketed in Russia is not clear, but here, for foreign audiences, Lisitsa steers clear of politics except for stressing her own Polish ancestry. This collection of Chopin pieces was recorded in late 2021, in Mosfilm studios in Moscow (with excellent sound, it must be said), prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The career of pianist Valentina Lisitsa has taken quite a few twists and turns, from her early success as an Internet star, to major-label success with Decca, label and public resistance to her support for Vladimir Putin's Russia, and now with music recorded for a label of her own and distributed by Naïve in France.
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