David Harutyunyan: “I would become a political tool with the Culture Act.”

 

David Harutyunyan announced his retirement as director of the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra. The reason is due to his nonconformity with the Organic Law of Culture, approved in November.

In an interview with Daily Expreso, the musician said that his contract ended in December and does not plan to renew it. “Since August this year I understood that my departure was going to be imminent,” he said. “This law, especially some sections, remove all the financial and artistic independence from symphony orchestras and musicians, and I am openly against this. I declared it many times to the Assembly, the Government, and they looked at me as a weirdo.”

Becoming “a political tool of some officials” is one of Harutyunyan’s objections to the Culture Act. “The law proposes that an artist or a group of artists must decide how I should do things, what I should play, where I should play, and that should depend on my musicians and me.”

He added that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage called on the President of the Orchestra, Jorge Saade, indicating that he should terminate the contract and hire a temporary director. “That day he told the musicians he was not happy with that decision, and that he would also file his resignation along with mine (this happened last Tuesday). So politicians now decide on art.”

His last concert as director of the Orchestra will be held at the Sanchez Aguilar Theater together with the Anima Inside rock band.