Star conductor Thomas Sanderling distanced himself from Putin's Russia. - "Performing the Ukrainian anthem marked the point of no return for me"
Renowned conductor Thomas Sanderling (81) found a way to master conducting on massive stages while seeking freedom at the appropriate moment. And even though each departure is agonizing, like his recent goodbye from his hometown of Novosibirsk.
Escape from Nazis
Starting with his origins, Thomas Sanderling was born in 1942 when his Jewish father, Kurt Sanderling (1912-2011), fled from the Nazis in 1936 to a Russian exile. "Even though it happened years before my birth, it indelibly impacted me," Sanderling reminisces. "The friend who helped my father escape later spent 20 years imprisoned. My mother's first husband was sentenced to death." Such stories leave a lasting impression.
Sanderling's childhood in St. Petersburg was influenced by his parents' international acquaintances and music: he began learning the violin, attended a conservatory, and displayed immense talent. He later stated, "I'm a German musician from Russia, yet I see myself as a European."
By 1960, the family was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and moved to East Berlin, where Sanderling embarked on a swift musical journey: at the tender age of 24, he became Germany's youngest music director in Halle (Saale).
Conveying his luck in mentors, Sanderling learned under renowned figures like Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, and the prodigious Dmitri Shostakovich. Through Shostakovich's symphonies, the young conductor managed to showcase them in Germany, earning him fame as an emblem of the peasant and worker's state. And thus, he embarked on global concert tours.
Escape from GDR
The "flight to the front" didn't take long: "Kurt Hager, the chief ideologue of the SED and the GDR's top cultural official, repeatedly prohibited me from conducting concerts in West Berlin," Sanderling recalls. "This reliance on the state made me ill, and after a concert tour from Japan, I did not return. Escape from the republic."
That also entailed parting with everything.
"The Stasi requested my father to persuade me to come back. He declined and told me: 'Contact me when you want; I don't want to talk to my son in secret.' He didn't care if we were being monitored," Sanderling recounts, his eyes moistening with tears.
In reaction to Putin's war
Surprisingly, Sanderling had grown weary. But one final escape - or perhaps a fight for freedom - remained. It involved his hometown, Novosibirsk, which he returned to as a conductor in 2002.
"It was a tricky situation: I was in Tallinn, Estonia, for a performance, and the orchestra management wanted to play the Ukrainian anthem. As the conductor of a Russian orchestra, I didn't feel pressured to lead, but I conducted because I strongly disapprove of this war," Sanderling remarked.
That evening, he decided to quit his position and not revisit Russia: "I couldn't wait any longer."
His career, which has spanned 55 years, continues to transport him to concert halls across the globe (May 19/20, Saarbrücken). However, he no longer necessitates his Russian passport, which he shares with his German one.
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Source: symclub.org
