Just in: Munich’s Hochschule chief is jailed for sex offences
mainThe court has given its verdict on the pianist Siegfried Mauser, former president of the Munich academy of music and the Salzburg Mozarteum. The official report reads:
A former president of the Munich Music Academy has been sentenced to 2 years and 9 months in three cases of sexual coercion. The 63-year-old was acquitted of the allegation of rape on Wednesday evening at the Munich district court. The criminal court found it proven that the man sexually forced a woman in three interviews between 2007 and 2013. The prosecution had also accused him of raping another woman in 2004.
Will he grab a Mauser and do the decent thing? Just kidding…
Just to add some info: his lawyers have announced they will appeal the sentencing.
Regarding the other trial which has ended with a nine month probationary sentence in April 2017 the prosecution has already filed for an appeal at the Oberlandesgericht ( higher regional court ) in Munich.
So nothing is final yet, at least 2 more trials to come.
To Michael Endres: what do you mean then? that it is not a problem yet???
One wonders if these scandals, court rulings, and the dismal behavior they have revealed, will lead Germany’s classcial music world to rethink its attitudes toward women. The Hochschule in Munich is not alone with the problems, not by a long shot.
The last time I looked at the musicians roster for Bayreuth, women represented only about 5% of the orchestra — the lowest ratio of any major orchestra in the world. The m/f ratio in the winds and percussion was about 60 to 2. The Berlin Phil still has the third lowest ratio in the world.
The legal problems surrounding Mauser, the Dean of the University of Music in Munich, and similar problems surrounding one of its composition professors, should be very sobering. Will they lead to meaningful changes?
The classical music world should watch closely, because the attitudes toward women in the classcial music worlds in France and Italy are similar.
Another thing that strikes me is that these problems have been wide-spread and have gone on for decades, but the conservatories never brought these problems to an end. A real confrontation with the issue has only happened after the Munich District Attororney stepped in.
POLONIUS: What do you read, my Lord?
HAMLET: Numbers, numbers, numbers.
POLONIUS (looking at the book): Me too.
Indeed, the press has found the sexual misbehavior stats at the Munich Musikhochschule very interesting. As has the District Attorney.
I had a moment to check the numbers in the Bayreuth Orchestra. In the winds and percussion, the m/f ratio is 66 to 3. It is telling because membership is only by invitation from each section. When the men aren’t bound by formal auditions, women are all but excluded. Ironically, the trombone section contains two of my wife’s students. Hopefully they can eventually help change things…
The m/f nubmers of the Bayreuther Orchestra help illustrate that mindset of misogyny from which sexual abuses evolves.
Mauser has long been known in German speaking countries. Nd in music business as a criminal sex offender, but it did not prevent him from sitting on juries in numerous important international
Puano competitions, to lead Munich university, Salzburg university and hold numerous other important appointments. This would not have been such a grave point IF Mauser were a halfway decent professional, BUT he is a no pianist, a lousy musician, a real nobody but a criminal sex offender. His sentence is way tooooooo light.
Nick: So they should increase his sentence for being a lousy piano player?
@Saxon: Yeah, I probably would…..say at least double it! Better triple! ;-))
I know the guy. He is a nobody! A regular asshole! These people should isolated from society, preferably for long! His fate caught up with him FINALLY!!