press statement:

New York Public Radio has terminated the employment of Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz following two separate investigations overseen by outside counsel. These investigations found that each individual had violated our standards for providing an inclusive, appropriate, and respectful work environment. In each investigation, an outside investigator interviewed multiple witnesses as well as Lopate and Schwartz.

The investigation into Leonard Lopate’s conduct was prompted by recent allegations of inappropriate behavior, following a previous substantiated investigation in February of this year of inappropriate remarks made by Lopate to staff. That previous investigation resulted in one-on-one anti-harassment training for him and a warning to Lopate that he was creating an uncomfortable work environment.

The investigation into Jonathan Schwartz was prompted by multiple complaints of inappropriate behavior received earlier this month and followed previous complaints, including as recently as November of this year, that were investigated and substantiated by New York Public Radio and resulted in disciplinary action at those times.

These decisions were made by management in consultation with and with the support of the Executive Committee of the New York Public Radio Board of Trustees.

We recognize that Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz have made many contributions to New York Public Radio and we are deeply saddened to have to take these steps. But our higher commitment continues to be to ensure an inclusive and respectful environment for our staff, guests and listeners.

 

Ever since James Levine was first accused of molesting young males, no-one in the opera world has been shocked or surprised by the identities disclosed.

The same applies to Charles Dutoit, who was accused today by four women of forcing himself on them.

Over recent weeks Slipped Disc has received accusations from three women, one of whom has now commented on Dutoit (see top comment on previous post). We have been seeking independent verification for these cases, but the fact that the same names came up in the allegations suggests that there might be substance to them.

Dutoit has yet to respond. Levine has issued a denial of sorts.

The focus now turns to those institutions where sexual assaults flourished.

Our commenter Fiona says of Tanglewood, for instance: ‘I have never felt angrier or less protected by an organisation.’ We have heard much the same from other former interns.

The Boston Symphony needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to publish the full results.

 

Among the four accusers is the soprano Sylvia McNair, who tells the Associated Press:

As soon as it was just the two of us in the elevator, Charles Dutoit pushed me back against the elevator wall and pressed his knee way up between my legs and pressed himself all over me. I managed to shove him off and right at that moment, the elevator door opened. I remember saying, ‘Stop it!’ And I made a dash for it.

Dutoit, 81, spent quarter of a century as music director in Montreal. He was a regular participant at the Tanglewood and Verbier festivals, two of the locations where James Levine was active.

For the past decade, he has been music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

The alleged incidents took place between 1985 and 2010.

‘He threw me against the wall, shoved my hand down his pants and shoved his tongue down my throat,’ said mezzo-soprano Paula Rasmussen of an incident she said occurred in his LA Opera dressing room in September 1991. Baritone John Atkins, who was part of the production, said he stood guard for her after the incident “as a witness, for lack of a better term.”

UPDATE: Lack of surprise at Dutoit and Levine.

UPDATE2: Orchestras throw out Dutoit.

UPDATE3: A sixth assault

UPDATE4: RPO calls for time out.

UPDATE5: Dutoit denies all, vows to clear his name

UPDATE6: A Maestro’s wife reflects.

UPDATE 7; Dutoit quits the RPO

UPDATE 8: Charles Dutoit is accused of rape.

UPDATE 9: Dutoit’s name is banned from Canada airwaves

UPDATE 10: Dutoit denies rape.

The Portuguese-born pianist Maria Joao Pires announced her retirement two months ago.

It was intended to take effect next summer. But Pires has cancelled her 2018 dates and tonight’s Zurich concert with Bernard Haitink and the Tonhalle appears to be her last public performance.

Pires is 73.

Her final work is Mozart’s last piano concerto, K595.

We wish her a contented retirement.

Nicholas Milton, who is stepping down as Generalmusikdirektor of the Saarländisches Staatsorchester ‘for personal reasons’, will take over next year as chief conductor in Gottingen.

Before Saarland, he spent six years as chief with the Jenaer Philharmonie.

From a reader:

I wonder whether other readers have been in touch with news of shocking events at the Barbican tonight.

The hall was full almost to capacity for what promised to be the definitive Messiah of the season: the choir and orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music with an all-star line-up of soloists directed from the harpsichord by Richard Egarr.

Messiah was to be preceded by the world premiere of A Young Known Voice by Hannah Conway. This work resulted from a collaboration with 50 children drawn from inner-city schools and representing a number of different ethnic and faith communities. The composition combined the original words and music of Messiah with words and music produced by the children during a series of sessions with the composer.

The children’s choir assembled on stage with a small group of singers and instrumentalists from the Academy. Hannah Conway then came onto the stage to introduce her new work. Towards the end of her introduction a
middle-aged white woman sitting towards the back of the stalls shouted, “Blah, blah, blah”. At this point Barbican staff ought to have realised that there was a heckler in the house and removed her before she was afforded the opportunity to cause further trouble.

Some minutes into the piece a girl of about 12 or 13 came to the front of the stage to deliver a brief spoken monologue which mentioned Brexit and Donald Trump. As she finished, the same woman began to shout, “Boo!” To
her credit, the girl showed no reaction as she returned to her position in the choir. The woman caused no further disturbance, but by this point the performance was ruined, as the audience listened anxiously lest she should
interrupt again. Meanwhile, there was considerable distraction from the back of the hall as Barbican staff came and went and audience members pointed out the offender.

After the applause Barbican staff asked the woman to leave. Some members of the audience began to chant, “Out! Out! Out!” One man told her that she wasn’t wanted at the concert. At first, the woman volunteered merely to move to a different seat, but a staff member was heard saying that she couldn’t stay. When eventually she got up to leave a brief applause broke out. She was heard muttering something as she left.

The culture of booing at some of the world’s leading opera houses has been the subject of much discussion on Slipped Disc in the past. But if it is discourteous to boo a professional opera singer it surely is unforgivable to boo a child performing, no doubt for the first time, in front of an audience of almost 2,000 people. Projects such as this are intended to help young people to engage with classical music, but if they are booed and heckled when performing their own work on the stage of one of our most prestigious concert halls there can be little hope.

There was a time when the music business surged to Fort Worth to sign up the Cliburn finalists.

No longer. The competition has yielded dull results and the business has turned its sights elsewhere.

So it’s a relief to report that this year’s Korean winner Yekwon Sunwoo, 28, has signed with the London boutique management Keynote, whose artists include Helene Grimaud and Teodor Curentzis.

Just in from Bob Shingleton’s On An Overgrown Path:

Whether we like it or not, Norman Lebrecht’s Slipped Disc blog is an accurate measure of the pulse of the classical industry, because it receives the unqualified support of musicians, record labels and orchestras. At the time of writing sixteen of the twenty most recent Slipped Disc posts are about classical celebrities, while three of the others are updates on long-running celebrity-related scandals. Which means that using this measure classical music’s priority is 95% celebrities and their dalliances. There was not one story about the setting of the music; not one story is about the physical, virtual, or social environments in which the music is heard. 

But for once let’s not blame Norman. Slipped Disc’s readership is supposedly large, and these are the stories that the readers in the closed loop want, so these are the stories the classical industry is producing. Classical music’s core problem is its inability to see further than its own celebrity-fixated closed loop. 

This must be the first kind word Bob Shingleton has ever had to say about Slipped Disc and, while it is gratefully received in the spirit of the season, it would be remiss on our part not to indicate its statistical shortcomings.

These are the stats.

Slipped Disc is on course to reach 1.5 million readers this month.

Google Analytics tells us pretty much who and where they are.

36.9 percent are in the US, 21.1 percent in the UK, 7.29 percent in Germany, 4.23 percent in Canada, 3.02 percent in France and so on.

46% are female, 54% are male.

But the most striking statistic is this: 27.5% are aged 18-24; and 33.5% are between 25 and 34 years old.

That means 61 percent of Slipped Disc readers are below the age of 35.

That is hardly the ‘the incestuous closed loop at the centre of the classical music industry’ that Shingleton claims. It is a very different readership from the classical preset and one that is very engaged and interactive. What is more, it is growing not just from outside the classical music community but from beyond Facebook and the rest of social media.

These are new demographic horizons and we are excited to explore them. We wish On An Overgrown Path success in its own efforts to reach new readerships.

 

 

In a programme-length interview on Shanghai’s main television channel, I was asked about the acrid rivalry that persists between China’s two best-known classical musicians.

I offered a remedy which (I hope) you can watch below.

You may also find the programme’s production values interesting and encouraging.

And the adverts are culturally illuminating.

If the embed below doesn’t work click here to see the programme.