Breaking: Festival chief suspends himself during #MeToo investigation

Breaking: Festival chief suspends himself during #MeToo investigation

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norman lebrecht

July 31, 2018

The Austrian conductor Gustav Kuhn stood down today of his own volition from the Erl Festival that he founded in 1997, ‘in order to avert further damage’ to the event. Kuhn has been accused by five female musicians of sexual assaults, which he denies.

The Festival board, welcoming his decision, has asked his deputy, Andreas Leisner, to stand in as interim artistic director.

Kuhn, 72, has been involved in libel action for several months against a blogger who first raised the allegations.

Full story in the Faz.

Comments

  • boringfileclerk says:

    Will he conduct a self investigation to get to the bottom of the matter?

    • Doug says:

      No. But the #MeThree cult members will self-appoint themselves prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

  • Sue says:

    Here we go again. Salem lives. We need to have it spelled out; is kissing a woman you’re not in a relationship with considered rape? This seems to be the case now.

    And Doug is right about the cult members. This is the brave new world of leftist ideology. Jordan Peterson nails it here (and this is why they’ve got into a tailspin at, oh, the horror!):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shapiro

  • Sue says:

    Another slant, inter alia, which will send the Left into another asphyxiating
    tailspin:

    https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/practice-resources/the-business-of-law/workplace-environment/metoo-and-diversity-good-causes-and-silly-ideas

    Oh, I feel a change comin’ on!!!

  • V.Lind says:

    According to your link the libel allegation is to do with what sounds like a bullying sort of behaviour. An allegation was made and he took legal action, presumably still pending.

    This is a different story, a different theme, and his reaction is to step down — get out of the frame, perhaps hoping it will go away if he does. He is not standing and fighting, or alleging slander. Does he have less grounds?

    Sue’s assumption that this is about “kissing a woman you are not in a relationship with” is as typically groping in the dark as most of her comment son this issue. NL’s post does not specify the allegations — but they must have gone beyond kissing for a man of his stature to give up his post. And Sue’s response indicates what we all already know — she has an ideological stake in this issue, and is not responding to cases. From her published standpoint, every woman who has made allegations is a lying whinger who asked for it. What a world she lives in — but to know it we only have to read her recommendation. Ben Shapiro indeed. I’m surprised she can bear him as he is anti-Trump, but it shows the extent of her extreme conservatism.

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