Berlin (AFP) – A German orchestra music on Saturday accused the Turkish authorities to put pressure on him and the European Union, to prevent the term “genocide” is used as part of a concert he gave about the massacre of Armenians in 1915.

“This is an attack on freedom of expression,” said the director of the Dresden orchestra (East), Dresdner Sinfoniker, Markus Rindt.

According to him, the Embassy of Turkey to the European Union asked the European Commission in Brussels to remove a subsidy of 200,000 euros given to the orchestra for this project, arguing that the show uses the term “genocide” – Ankara rejects that – to qualify the massacres there a century.

The European Commission maintained the subsidy but invited the orchestra to “soften” the texts of the show by no longer mentioning genocide and removed any mention of the concert on its web page, said the director of the orchestra. “We find this all very questionable,” he told AFP.

A spokesman for the Commission in Brussels acknowledged the withdrawal. “Due to concerns raised about the terms used to describe the project, the Commission has temporarily removed from its website to discuss a new formulation with the project sponsor,” said she told AFP.

The show was mounted to mark the centenary of the massacre of Armenians in 1915 and wants a reconciliation project.

It combines several musical selections played by an orchestra displaying Turkish and Armenian musicians. The controversy concerns the texts sung by the choir or played on stage, as well as the formulation of the program that speaks explicitly of genocide (www.aghet.eu). The name of the production, “Aghet” is also used to speak Armenian massacres of 1915.

It was shown in November 2015, first in Berlin, without causing tub.