Orchestra suspends flute over child abuse charges

Orchestra suspends flute over child abuse charges

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norman lebrecht

September 07, 2017

The Athens State Orchestra (KOA) has begun disciplinary proceedings against  Panayiotis Drakos, a flute player who was arrested this week on charges of abusing three girls aged nine to eleven.

In a statement, the orchestra said the Greek music community was shocked by the ‘abhorrent’ nature of the alleged offences. Panayiotis Drakos, 60, is a full-time flute player and teacher.

He has been referred to as ‘the most important flute soloist in the country’.

 

Comments

  • J'aime la musique says:

    “Most important flute soloist of the century.” REALLY?! Give me a break!!

    • Bruce says:

      It doesn’t say he IS Greece’s foremost solo flutist, only that he has been REFERRED to that way. (By whom? His mother, perhaps. My mom thinks I’m pretty nifty.)

  • Tutti Flutie says:

    Actually it looks to me like this guy Drakos is not really a legit orchestral flutist. He appears to be more of a flute teacher and a classical-pop crossover artist who does a lot of popular recordings.

    His name doesn’t even appear on the orch.’s website. There are 4 flutists listed and he is not one of them. There hasn’t been enough time to remove his name from the website and replace him with someone else.

    Maybe he WAS at one time with this orch., but in defense of orch. players everywhere, it would be really unusual for a sitting orchestral Principal Flute to be out abusing children. 1. there’s no time for it 2. anyone in touch professionally in the orch world just would not risk it. 3. working flute soloists are generally fulfilled enough in their prof. lives that they wouldn’t need to be doing this.

    • Takis says:

      He was in the list of musicians until September 6th . He was first flute (principal) of the orchestra for a long time-10 maybe 20 years. He was a serious member of KOA, and also member of highly esteemed group for woodwinds ” Nikolaos Mantzaros”.

    • Robert Holmén says:

      Yes, it is unusual. No one said it was “usual”

      Unusual doesn’t mean “couldn’t happen”

      • Takis says:

        Not so rare and unusual. See a lot of posts in SD, with incidents in UK, Germany etc and remember a famous early music conductor who is in jail in England.

        • Tutti Flutie says:

          The ones I see on SD seem to be mostly teachers, not active orch. players. Conductors are another story. They’re capable of anything. 😉 I think the one you mentioned is out of jail, BTW.

    • Bruce says:

      If you think a busy and/or fulfilling professional life leaves someone with no time or energy for indulging their other passion(s), you don’t know much about human nature.

  • Una says:

    Surely flautist not the flute????

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