Ukrainian pianist dropped by TSO will play Donetsk

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Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, whose Toronto Symphony Orchestra performances were cancelled after the institution judged her comments on the Ukraine-Russia conflict too inflammatory, is taking her music right to ground zero in the war between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels.

The 43-year-old musician says she is booked to play a concert this month in Donetsk, part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian forces that have been fighting the Ukraine government for more than a year.

Ms. Lisitsa, who lives in Paris and rocketed to fame on YouTube for her classical music, is emerging as a willing participant in the public relations battle between Russia and the West.

She has acquired a reputation on Twitter as a harsh critic of the Kiev government and a supporter of the separatists – a contrarian view for most expatriate Ukrainians in the West.

On Tuesday, Ms. Lisitsa went a step further, playing a piano recital that celebrated Russia's greatest classical composers at Moscow's embassy in Ottawa.

She rejected the suggestion she is a propaganda tool for the Russian government, which strongly protested against her censure by the Toronto Symphony and compared it to McCarthyism.

Ms. Lisitsa said objections to her Internet commentary from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, an influential lobby group in this country, drove the concert cancellations and made her even more well known.

"I am not known any more as a YouTube pianist, I am known as the pianist whom the Toronto Symphony Orchestra shut down [because] of the freedom of my speech," she said in an interview.

Ms. Lisitsa, whose mother is Russian, calls the Ukrainian government of Petro Poroshenko "horrible, terrible to people" and says the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and the United States is making matters worse by encouraging the fighting between Kiev and the rebels.

"What upsets me about the Canadian position ... Canadian Ukrainians, is the further it gets from the field of battle, the more bloodthirsty people get," she said.

Ms. Lisitsa does not deny Russia supports rebels in eastern Ukraine. "Of course Russia is helping. It's a proxy fight between Russia and the West."

She is sympathetic to Mr. Putin's annexation of Crimea. "He would not be able to take something which was not given to him. It's very difficult to say, 'No' to people who were so much for it."

A senior official at the Ukrainian embassy in Canada said Ms. Lisitsa's opinions tend to mirror Russian messaging.

"My strictly personal point of view is she is a kind of person who represents Russian propaganda cliché," said Marko Shevchenko, Ukraine's chargé d'affaires in Ottawa.

He said holding a concert in Donetsk "is not a proper way of behaving in this situation."

The Ukrainian envoy noted that Russian pop stars who support Mr. Putin and the ambitions of the separatists have also performed in Donetsk.

Ms. Lisitsa makes no apologies for criticizing the government of Ukraine, which was reconstituted in 2014 after a popular uprising ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.

"You can say yes, I am picking sides. But I am just giving the balance. Because the balance is very much skewed to everything positive" in favour of Kiev, she said.

The pianist's social media activity has included references to Ukrainians as ukropy, a derogatory term, and as "dog feces and Nazis," and allegations Ukrainians are setting up "filtration camps" – internment centres – for ethnic Russians.

Ms. Lisitsa is adamant Kiev has prepared legislation to set up internment camps if necessary.

Mr. Shevchenko rejects the allegation.

He said the spread of disinformation online by an "army of [Internet] trolls" working for Russia is a problem for Ukraine.

"I didn't say that she's a troll," the envoy hastened to add of Ms. Lisitsa.