{"id":28155,"date":"2015-05-04T15:12:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T19:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=28155"},"modified":"2015-05-04T15:20:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T19:20:04","slug":"breaking-valentina-lisitsa-cancels-oakville-concert-over-concerns-about-concert-organisers-credibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2015\/05\/04\/breaking-valentina-lisitsa-cancels-oakville-concert-over-concerns-about-concert-organisers-credibility\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING | Valentina Lisitsa Cancels Concert Over Concerns About Organiser\u2019s Credibility"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pianist
Pianist Valentina Lisitsa cancels Oakville concert indefinitely.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As reported by Norman Lechrecht<\/a>, YouTube pianist Valentina Lisitsa<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 who was turned away by the TSO over offensive and politically motivated tweets involving the ongoing Ukrainian conflict \u2013 is now cutting her losses and walking away from Toronto altogether.<\/p>\n

Lisitsa\u00a0has officially cancelled her scheduled May 8th<\/span>\u00a0concert in Oakville at The Meeting House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a letter <\/a>published on Lechrecht’s Slipped Disc website, Lisitsa\u00a0expressed concerns\u00a0pertaining to the credibility of the event organizer Les Holdway’s charities as the reason she has cancelled the event.<\/p>\n

\n

Dear Mr.Holdway,<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what the reasons are behind your intent to make the concerts on May 8 and 9.\u00a0 Whether you saw an opportunity as an entrepreneur to make some money on my \u201cfive minutes of fame\u201d \u2013 or you genuinely tried to do a good deed for the society, inspired by the publicity that surrounded my cause \u2013 it\u2019s not for me to judge.
\nAt this point I accept nothing but cold, hard facts that I could verify.
\n1. You don\u2019t have the charities you said you have. I don\u2019t care about semantics or legal terms or whether they are \u201cin process or being\u201d this or that\u2026 The fact is \u2013 you don\u2019t have them now. You didn\u2019t have them when you called me to arrange the concerts. By advertising the concert as FUNDRAISER for CHARITIES you mislead people and made me an unwitting participant in this deception.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

3. You say you paid over $9,000 in expenses for rentals etc in preparation for the concert.
\nI am yet to hear from Meeting House whether you made 100% nonrefundable deposit. But their rent for commercial and non-profit events is public information. It\u2019s 1\/10th of the number you named. Need I say more?
\n4. I spoke with Steinway and was told that: first of all you didn\u2019t pay them. Second, you downgraded from a concert grand to a small piano without even asking me.
\nFor me it\u2019s enough \u201cevidence\u201d.
\nPlease kindly request Ticketmaster to issue the refunds to the audience.
\nI will make a statement on Facebook about the cancelation.
\nI thank you for a hard lesson you gave me: I should be less trusting of people in a future, no matter how good their intents may seem.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\nValentina<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

First reported last week<\/a>, the concert in Oakville at The Meeting House was to take place on May 8 \u2013 9, 2015. Les Holdway, a developer from Cambridge Ontario, stated the concert was to be cut down to just one performance\u00a0due to a conflict with Lisitsa\u2019s travel schedule. The reason was not publicly confirmed by Lisitsa.<\/p>\n

\"Les
Les Holdway, Broker at Rescom Real Estate, owner Blackbridge Mill Inn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Musical Toronto then began receiving reports by sources questioning to the validity of the charities run by event organizer Les Holdway. The charities were Noah\u2019s Ark Wetlands Foundation and the Canadian Journalists Defence Fund.<\/p>\n

A closer look at the charities found that The Wetland Foundation registered as a charity in 2002, but had its charitable status revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in 2013 for \u201cFailure to File\u201d. The charity appears to have not been active since 2003, and only raised a total of $1,040.<\/p>\n

The second charity (The Canadian Journalists Defence Fund), currently has no public record in the CRA charity database. According to Holdway (via twitter<\/a>), this was because it was only incorporated on April 9, 2015.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Holdway last week,\u00a0he stated he was intending on recording the concert, but did not state how he intended on using the recording. He also said that Steinway had effectively donated a piano to the event at no cost. This fact was disputed, but\u00a0not confirmed.<\/p>\n

We can only offer speculation as to how Holdway would have benefited from the concert, but it seems Lisitsa felt that she was being taken advantage of and pulled out of the event.<\/p>\n

At this time we can confirm ticketmaster<\/a> is not longer selling tickets and will be offering full refunds.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valentina Lisitsa cancels Toronto appearance in wake of discrepancies involving charities run by event organizer Les Holdway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118,39,63],"tags":[5411,3442],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/05\/SS-Valentina-5585.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-7k7","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28155"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28168,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155\/revisions\/28168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28155"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}