Exclusive: Emily Skala’s first interview since her firing… ‘nobody knows me’
NewsThe sacked principal flute of the Baltimore Symphony has been talking in depth to Shruti Advani (pic) on her podcast, Feminism from an Unwoke World. Advani’s podcast is published by Mark Borkowski, one of the UK’s top PRs.
Although Advani is sympathetic to some of Skala’s arguments, she also calls in Michael Turner QC to discuss the difficult issues of free speech and ‘no jab, no job’.
Skala talks of abuse by her colleagues and accusations of antisemitism. ‘Discrimination is illegal,’ she says. ‘If I had been guilty of that I would have been released by any of my employers, going back to 1983.’
She claims she has been pushed by her colleagues ‘into nonpersonhood… they are even calling me clinically insane…. they are literally taking my career away from me.’
Listen here.
This simply has to stop!!!
The NYC mandates will disproportionately affect people of color, the majority of whom are not yet vaccinated.
Curious to see what happens next…but I’m not expecting any slowing down to the great Wokening which is poisoning our society.
After you!
The greatest threat to America right now is leftwing extremism. It is destroying music, just as it is destroying everything else. God help us.
If you voted thumbs down, you really need to look at the facts: social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are silencing voices that dissent from the leftist world-view. Book publishers are cancelling the writings of conservatives who digress from the leftist diatribes. There are many arenas (Hollywood) where a declared Republican simply cannot get hired anymore. Many universities have less than 5% conservative professors. Yes, the left is destroying everything they come in contact with. They are the true fascists and Neo-Nazis. Now, please, vote Thumbs Down.
Personally, I would welcome opposing viewpoints from intelligent, compassionate, reasonable true conservatives. In a healthy society, there should always be constructive dialogue and debate between the left and the right.
Speaking as someone who is mostly liberal-minded, I nevertheless believe that the worst excesses of the left can and should be met with well-considered and convincing argument.
However, that’s not what is happening. All I hear from the right these days is a lot of increasingly insane-sounding and often very dangerous conspiracy nonsense. lt is simply not possible for anyone with a reasonably functional bullshit meter to take any of that stuff seriously.
Please leave aside all the overheated silliness about “communism”, the “stolen election”, and all the pseudoscience babble about vaccines. Don’t be so intellectually lazy. Come up with better arguments and try to convince me with FACTS (remember those? You probably learned about them in first grade).
I sincerely hope that there are some true conservatives remaining, and I hope that they are able to regain control over their political parties before we all go over the cliff together.
First grade was a liberal hoax.
The top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages on August 16 were from:
1. Newsmax
2. Ben Shapiro
3. TENNIS .com
4. Fox News
5. CNN en Español
6. Ben Shapiro
7. The Washington Times
8. WLWT
9. Ben Shapiro
10. Fox News
Only 7 out of 10 are from conservative media sources! Why aren’t all 10?!?! Must be that facebook is censoring non-leftist world views!
That’s undoubtedly very true. They behave atavistically like their Bolshevik ancestors. It’s the default position.
Look at the lead guitarist/banjo player of Mumford & Sons, Winston Marshall. He left the band after a vicious attack/pile-on when he praised a book written by Andy Ngo. After first saying “I was wrong and I need to re-think my reasoning” (so Bolshevik and North Korean) he left the band to protect his friends and family. The way the Left defends itself over accusations of increasing tyranny is to say “look over there – at all those right wing extremists” (yet never actually identifying any and saying what they do)!!
Very dangerous people.
The Beatles told their critics to “get lost, we don’t want you” when John Lennon commented that more people were listening to their music than were attending church (‘bigger than Jesus’).
Y: “The greatest threat to America right now is leftwing extremism.”
It is stunning to think that a rational person could believe this, much less state it publicly.
The greatest threat to America right now is ignorance, exploited via disinformation to foment a rising right wing neo-fascist movement out of what used to be the Republican Party.
Do you know that most Republicans believe Trump won the election, Y? Are you completely unaware of the Big Lie, the January 6th insurrection, the Republican attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Congress, and the growing threat of right wing militias and violence reported this week by the DHS? How about the vigorous ongoing efforts by Republican state legislatures to gerrymander and suppress voter turnout in 2022, as well as give themselves the power to overturn their state elections in order to seize or retain power despite being in the minority?
American democracy is under real threat right now. The threat is compounded by Covid – a dire situation relentlessly exacerbated by prominent Republicans making false claims about vaccines to raise money (!) while secretly being vax’d themselves. While they prattle on about how their freedoms are being stolen by ‘wokeness’, they’re going about stealing democracy.
I agree with one part of your comment, though, Y: when I read it I thought, God help us!
Ha ha! And some of you say Emily Skala has ridiculous opinions!
BRAVO!!!!!
Well, the Baltimore Symphony now has its pick of the myriad great flutists around the world to replace Ms. Skala. They’ll be just fine and so with the classical music world as a whole.
Replacing Emily Skala is hardly the issue.
The issue is what kind of profession we creating for ourselves as orch musicians when one of us can be simply dismissed at the will of management or other players. What legacy, what precedent is that for any other musician hoping for a stable, productive career as an orch player?
lol, get off your high horse. you break the rules of a job, you get fired. facts don’t care about your feelings, snowflake
Whether or not she broke the rules of her job is exactly what’s under debate, genius.
Lotta snowflakes here, but I’m not one of them. Just another musician who doesn’t want politics dictating my career.
Just show up and play well, leave the politics at home. Neither the audience nor the other orchestra members are interested in the views of individual musicians.
Absolutely right, Bill.
I thought Republicans/conservatives loved “at will” employment and the free market?
You are so far off target here it’s almost not worth it to respond.
Not everyone who supports a fellow orch player who MIGHT have been fired erroneously is a Republican/conservative. You’re esconced in your own personal conspiracy theory that anyone who questions Emily Skala’s firing must be a Republican. WTF? That’s just insane.
Republicans are not conservatives (not anymore, anyway).
Orchestras used to be just that way for much of the last century. I’m not proposing we go back to the bad old days, but there was plenty of fine music-making done in such conditions, and if they are too harsh for some, well, there’s an oversupply of very skilled players being churned out by the conservatories, etc.
Great. And when someone asks an orch player what our real job is, what do we say?
You’re relegating music making to a fun hobby or pastime for the wealthy. It’s a profession.
That could be said about anyone’s job, including yours (if you even have one).
Has Emily refused to be vaccinated, and is vaccination mandated by the orchestra?
I see on the BSO website that the audience will not be socially distanced for the month of September. Nor is there a vaccination or testing requirement for attendees. They must wear masks, but up to 2000 people will be packed together in a closed space. The situation in the orchestra is different since wind players will be blowing through horns and not wearing masks, but I still see a somewhat inconsistent policy that might define Emily’s firing as arbitrary (and even though I disagree with her views about the pandemic.)
Billy Osborne…as if the BSO has seen anything more than 40-50 percent capacity in years. I don’t think the number of seats in the Meyerhoff will be an issue. In fact…social distancing will be easy with their attendance figures.
An expert opinion from someone using HBO as their personal website.
This interview is a good first step for Emily. She is articulate and intelligent and explains herself credibly.
She raises the key point that prior to this, she’d been in conversation with management for the past 12 years to resolve conflicts with her colleagues. It has the earmarks of a workplace mobbing, harassment. Nothing to do with Covid. Several other commenters in previous threads have also referred to this. Her colleagues don’t like her. She’s different. They wanted her gone. Firing her over Covid views, or alleged antisemitic views from illegally leaked emails was simply a convenient way out for management.
Ms. Advani asks good questions of Emily. Legally, however, this is a question of US law. A foreign attorney, like Mr. Turner, can hypothesize, opine theoretically in a general way, but it’s a case which should be addressed by a US lawyer.
Emily’s firing, or any settlement she receives depends not on some philosophical concept of free speech, but on very tangible points defined in her master contract and AFM guidelines.
Emily says in the interview, for example, that Baltimore Symphony’s Human Resources (HR) Dept. officially “banned” (prevented her from entering) her from her workplace based on the fact that she posted a video questioning PCR testing. She explains that she was banned on the ASSUMPTION that since she had posted the video, she would not be complying with workplace Covid safety mandates, not on any actual refusal to do so.
If Emily is describing this accurately, this is a big red flag. Did Emily actually refuse to comply with Covid safety measures, or did management just assume she wouldn’t based on her social media? That’s the kind of specific legal issue which determines who’s right in this situation.
Mr. Turner, the lawyer in the interview, may be a legal expert in this area, wasn’t really in a position to address that.
From Emily’s lucid and logical explanations in this interview, I am sensing more and more that she is dealing with an ineffective and immature HR Dept. at Baltimore. They actually seem pretty clueless to me.
Every orch musician who’s been around for a while knows the extraordinary conflicts seen on an everyday basis between players in many top orchestras. And yes, many players are known to have controversial beliefs. Yet in most situations, they keep playing. Very few are fired. Orch management has to expect and know how to handle this.
Baltimore apparently does not. They are just going with the easiest way out here. They are following the wishes of the colleagues who dislike Emily and the noise on social media. They are failing to recognize the value of a veteran player, whose artistic merit has never been questioned, who happens to be a black sheep.
This is all actually to Emily’s benefit. Hearing this interview, I believe now that she is smarter and more capable of controlling this situation to her benefit than I’d imagined. She needs good legal counsel and a lot of money from Baltimore.
And by all means, she should do more interviews and press appearances. Flute has a great advantage because you can just whip it out and prove yourself at any given moment.
Carry on, Emily. I dislike your beliefs, but you deserve to succeed in this situation. Go for it!
There must be a different version of the interview floating around, as she did not sound lucid, logical, articulate, or any of the other terms of praise you piled higher and deeper.
From the comments here – both hers and everyone else’s – I was expecting a complete madwoman. She sounded perfectly normal to me.
Crazy people sound normal to other crazy people.
Not everyone has been booing and hissing from behind their ‘Democrat’ sofas.
Another genius posting as “Anon.” Faceless and useless to boot
So which John Kelly are you?
“Orch management has to expect and know how to handle this.”
What if… I’m just spitballing here… hear me out… what if the right way to handle this is to follow the progressive discipline procedures in the CBA?
…and what if that is exactly what they are doing?
Someone would have to be familiar with the procedures in Baltimore’s CBA to know if that is the case or not.
Anon, I truly admire you attempt to bring some sort of reasonable discussion to this mobbing going on here.
I wouldn’t know where to start. Emily brings up a whole array of issues that should be handled, and then demonstrates how impossible it is for most people to even find any bearing, when you’ve questioned what you’re told.
I think elections were stolen, but that was for Trump, not against him, and I think that’s been going on since Clinton’s second term, when the exit polls started to be off, although Clinton won his second term.
There are numerous issues concerning vaccines, although I’ve had the covid jabs, I have serious questions about other vaccines, and questions you can’t ask and get what I find clear open responses, as is the case with so… SO Much! stuff regarding healthcare. I do think that if more people got the vaccine, then the world could go back into gear, but there IS the whole debacle that there are currently, and have been the whole time numerous issues regarding health that are preventable, kill people more and will continue to kill people more than covid, and they are dismissed. In fact, I think poverty, and hunger are worse, as is the situation for people in a war zone. Why haven’t those issues been put on the forefront, and why are they further pushed to the side?
And then someone daring to maintain a viewpoint outside of the norm, and what kind of mobbing, and intimidation, and the extreme extent of supposed witticisms and sarcasm one is met with that people seem to think are entertaining; all to push aside even questioning whether there’s something going on that could be looked at. Only attempts at making sure if anyone brings these things up, they are made to feel the whole world is against them, and most likely going to get lost in the quagmire that leaves them vulnerable to all sorts of stuff from anyone having received the same treatment, and having lost their bearings.
It’s absolutely disgusting.
After a certain point, one can’t even expect people to be decent anymore, it’s only about ridiculing someone.
your cries for “decency” fall flat when public health is at risk from these idiots. Get your head checked
Imap writes: “public health is at risk from these idiots”
You are just wrong. Not getting vaccinated places the person not vaccinated at risk but has no effect on those who are vaccinated. Getting vaccinated stops you getting very ill but does not stop Covid spreading since vaccinated people can still catch and spread Covid.
The anti-vaxxers may be misguided but they are not endangering public health.
Saxon: I half agree with you. As you note, vaccinations are not 100% effective against contracting the disease, but very effective at preventing serious symptoms requiring hospitalization and resulting in death if you should become sick from the virus. A new misconception/conspiracy theory is that the vaccine does nothing to prevent one from contracting Covid-19. This is flatly incorrect.
But here is where I disagree with you: the antivaxxers DO put everyone at risk as they make themselves the Petri dishes for the virus to mutate. The Delta variant is an example. This is what viruses do. The Delta variant is what vaccinated people who get “breakthrough infections” are being infected with.
It’s a vicious circle:
Large swaths of people do not get vaccinated->
Virus mutates amongst this population->
Vaccinated people get breakthrough infections->
Antivaxxers say “See? Vaccines don’t work!”->
Potential for a new variant to develop that is resistant to vaccines.
I think we all know that there are people who may have medical reasons not to get vaccinated. I would imagine that these people would be desperate for the rest of us to do our part and get vaccinated, in order to protect THEM.
We get vaccinated as a population to protect the whole population.
Thanks so much, Antivaxxers. Your conspiracy theories are putting EVERYONE ELSE at risk.
And to put a bow on it, if a flutist (who is an antivaxxer conspiracy theorist and clearly not a team player) for whatever reason won’t follow health protocols, how the hell is she expected to be permitted to play the flute in a crowded space, potentially spreading the virus and all its variants to everyone around her? It doesn’t matter how talented she is. If I were a wind player nearby, I’d want management to do something about it, too.
Doesn’t matter if this is why she was fired. It matters because we all need to be aware of the impact our decisions and behaviors have on our fellow human beings.
I’m sure we will learn all the reasons behind her firing but in the meantime, I hope she doesn’t contract Covid.
racism and Jew-hating aren’t to be entertained as “questioning” or “other opinions”. Scurry on off with that nonsense.
facts don’t care about your feelings, snowflake. don’t you republicans always champion the rights of business to decide who they hire, fire and serve? tough cookie, kiddo
It’s just unfortunate that people aren’t allowed to express their personal opinions, even if they differ from their employer’s, without suffering in the end. I know I won’t be popular for saying this, but I am sorry that this musician has had to lose her career.
Express your views elsewhere, without tying them to your employer, and people do not get quite so upset. However, it will no doubt be proven that she was terminated for specific actions in violation of her employment agreements, not her beliefs and opinions.
I don’t believe that her personal social media accounts are tied to an employer….if they are/were then how so?
Because employers never abuse their position of power over employees, and are always models of perfect fairness and honour, right? And they never lose cases in tribunals or arbitration, right? Obviously, the New York Philharmonic is not a proper orchestra, so the recent arbitration verdict mandating that two players be reinstated does not count, right?
Maybe so. But she doesn’t have to end up in the street penniless if she uses her head in this situation.
Look, I don’t like her opinions, but I defend her right to survive. I don’t see her back in an orchestra job, but I believe that she deserves a fair financial settlement from Baltimore Symphony.
She broke the rules. She gets nothing. Nada.
you do realize she was fired for trying to enter the building illegally, since she was not vaccinated and maskless? stop misrepresenting the facts, snowflake
And you were there to personally vouch for that, right?
“Snowflake”? Seriously? I’m in Europe. What does that even mean?
Imap: we don’t know exactly why she was fired since the employer has not placed the reasons on public record.
Not when they are racist or Jew-hating conspiracy theory bigotry. Sorry that hurts you.
Oh stop making s*** up. Let lawyers decide what the facts are.
People who decline to be vaxed, piut otgers at risk and flavor their views with antisemitic views should not be part of publicly funded orchestras. It is as simple as that. Liberalism does not require to tolerate and endorse toxic fools.
Clearly vaccination affects your ability to write English.
BTW: The non-vaxxed do not put others at risk, since these so-called vaccines do not protect against reinfection. Getting vaccinated is like wearing a bike helmet: it won’t prevent the accident but you’ve a better chance of getting it out of it unscathed if it happens. It’s entirely personal, not a civic gesture of solidarity.
“Liberalism does not require to tolerate others’ opinions.”
FIFY
Baltimore Symphony is NOT a publicly funded orchestra! This isn’t Europe.
Anton Bruckner, I did not decline to be vaccinated. In point of fact, I had never been asked by management if I had been vaccinated. And furthermore, our deadline was September 7th, yet we were offered the option of medical and religious exemptions. I needed to submit a medical exemption from my doctor, for conditions the management already was aware of, had they taken a moment to think about it, but never had the opportunity to give them this letter. And lastly, there never was a time when I did not follow the BSO Covid safety protocols. They all know this. They are just gaslighting me and spreading this lie.
The facts about the behaviour that led to Ms Skala’s dismissal have not been made public (so far as I know) by BSO management or the Union. Speculation based solely on what Ms Skala says is pointless.
What has only been hinted at in the lengthy blog under the original article about this is the degree to which Emily has been the antithesis of a team player, which is equally important in the orchestra world as excelling as an instrumentalist. Once she got a principal job in the NC Symphony and subsequently in Baltimore, she had the sense of security to be inflexible, insulting, and downright cruel to her colleagues. The horror stories have abounded for years about her toxic influence on the wind sections she’s worked with (not!). I suspect the QAnon-type misinformation pronouncements— but especially any violations of health protocols (not wearing a mask despite not being vaccinated if it’s been required )were the proverbial straws that broke the camel’s back in a situation that has been untenable for a very long time. Working in an orchestra is not only about being able to play the instrument, as anyone who has worked in one knows very well.
Exactly right. From what I have been able to piece together, it sounds like she must have been an absolute nightmare as a colleague, spreading her toxic and extreme views unbidden among the other members and becoming offended when this was met with hostility. I don’t think she was being persecuted for her “views” – the other players were probably just tired of her unprofessional behaviour and constant, unnecessary drama.
I’m also willing to bet that most of her supporters in the comments here have never played in orchestras … or maybe ever worked at jobs where a certain professional decorum was called for.
Or maybe we do play in orchestras and abhor the idea that anyone could be fired for failing the Miss Congeniality contest at work.
Look, getting along with your colleagues is not a formal requisite for holding an orch job. It’s not part of the audition process and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s not addressed in any orch’s CBA. You can’t be fired for not getting along with your colleagues.
If you’re just doing your job & your colleagues gang up on you because they think you’re weird & cause you to get fired, that’s a workplace mobbing. The fault would lie on management. If that’s proven, Skala walks away from this a winner.
If conflicts with colleagues cause actual violations of work rules, a player can be formally disciplined. If Skala actually violated rules of her CBA, she’s in the wrong & she loses. We’re still unclear about what actually happened so we can’t speculate. That’s for the AFM or a court of law to decide.
You can certainly fail the tenure vote if you show your true colors during the probationary period!
True. But Skala passed her probationary period & received tenure 33 years ago. She was working with different generation of colleagues. As I understand it, her problems now are with her younger colleagues.
No wait. This is interesting. I wonder about this a lot.
She received tenure 33 years ago. Does that mean that as soon as that happened, she had the right to behave however and treat her colleagues however and expect no consequences?
On the other hand, how is it that she could repeatedly ask for help from management and perhaps be ignored? Where are the consequences for that? We may be seeing the answer that that question playing out in front of our eyes. I don’t think there are any innocent parties here.
On to your other point, about it being generational. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. I’ve worked with people much older and much younger than I am. Age isn’t the issue, at least I don’t believe it is at all. Attitude is the issue. You can have old jerks or young jerks or excellent colleagues of any age. That point of yours is pretty irrelevant.
Interesting points.
I’ve seen the comments from the colleagues she has problems with and their supporters. It’s clear that there’s a generational divide between them and Emily. They even mention it. I hate to sound snarky but they are hardcore Millennials. I suspect Baltimore management also is, which makes them sympathetic to the orch players who are of that same generation, not to Emily.
Emily’s a Boomer. No matter how you slice it Boomers are usually the bad guys to Millennials.”OK, Boomer” sounds exactly how they treated her. That would be a difficult challenge to overcome at work. This generational chasm didn’t exist when she started in Baltimore.
When you’re at a job for 33 years, it can be hard to relate well to successive generations of colleagues. It gets confusing. Emily lost her way.
Being able to co-operate with your colleagues is pretty crucial in almost every job anyone does. As does abidding by rules you don’t always agree with.
Okay, Z, I had to jump in here to say that everything you have said in your post here is a lie, empty gossip, and gaslighting and I hope Norman takes it all down. I am actually the most flexible and cooperative person I know, much too much so, especially for a Principal player. At times it did no one any favors. I have never been cruel to any of my colleagues, though at times I had to make a decision and be firm, and at times I had reason to be angry. For the most part, I have endured uncalled-for cruelty and disrespect often publicly: onstage in Carnegie Hall, in front of guest conductors, donors, substitute flutists, Peabody students, and BSO Academy flutists; or covertly, from colleagues a generation younger (or older) than myself for decades now. It simply boggles the mind what kind of parenting these people had. If anyone is a toxic influence on the wind section I worked in it would be the infamous and vengeful Katherine Needleman, the ungrateful and scheming Marcia McHugh, and the duplicitous gossip, Laurie Sokoloff…and their many, many allies and puppets. These are the people who should have been fired along the way by an incompetent management. But instead they got to stay, make up stories; spread rumors, and control the narrative. These are the antitheses of team players. This is the truth I could never speak while a responsible, constructive member of “the team.” This is the type of discrimination I endured as a female Principal player for 33 years in the orchestra. I had no provable proof until July 2020, and then I exposed it in the Sun paper (article posted here). The progressive discipline was merely an opportunity for management to create documentation. All they wanted was a paper trail. For that they needed complaints. It didn’t matter if they were true and valid complaints, as Shruti Advani said. They just needed complaints. And so it began. Everything I was disciplined for was fabricated. All of it. And at the very end, the CEO lied to the International press implying that I had continued to behave badly all throughout the seven months despite the many admonitions and warnings and suspensions without pay when literally nothing of the kind had taken place. But they are the bosses so they are the authority. And you all bought it.
It is evident from this whole ordeal that Ms. Skala has been wounded very deeply by the BSO. Be it from management, fellow musicians, or a combination of the two, the last 12 years sounds as though it’s been especially challenging.
It is also evident that Ms. Skala is a very fine musician and has met and exceeded the artistic demands of being a principal flutist in a symphony orchestra for over 33 years. This is an incredible accomplishment given the fact that the relationship between her and the orchestra has grown increasingly sour. How do you make music when things get so bad? To her credit (and the orchestra) the average concert goer didn’t notice.
Unfortunately, the BSO found a reason to fire Ms. Skala (presumably mask mandates/vaccination requirements). I suppose this is the “official” reason. According to Ms. Skala, she was fired for her personal views.
Personally, I believe Ms. Skala (that’s to say her version of events and not the views expressed) However, I don’t believe that she would win in a courtroom with this argument as it would be very difficult to prove. If an organization wants you gone, you can be sure they’ll eventually find just cause.
Though not a professional, if we consider the stress diathesis model (also known as the vulnerability ability stress model) it is expected that someone exposed to stressful situations over an extended period of time will manifest proclivities later demonized by others. One blames the subject while dismissing the influence of the environment. That is something that can be proven and is widely accepted in the mental health field.
I wish Ms. Skala and the BSO the best of luck.
Someone else suffering from Dunning-Kruger
Oh honey – you can do better than that…you’re supposed to be educated.
May I suggest that you show Emily Skalas’ photo, not that of Shruti Advani ?
I agree. Are we not even supposed to know what Emily looks like?
That’s something you can easily find out by watching the video/seeing previous posts about her firing and firing back/googling her. If you do any of those things, you will see images aplenty. I wouldn’t say that Mr Lebrecht is trying to prevent you from seeing what she looks like. No conspiracy here, folks.
I’m not pro or con Emily Skala. I’m just hoping for fairness and a legitimate legal process on her behalf.
I’ll just put this out here. Why is it that 2 star players of NY Phil, accused of crimes far more serious & harmful to their colleagues than Skala were reinstated recently?
Now that their case has been settled, I hope it can be said openly what these men were accused of. Not wearing a mask pales in comparison. Justice for Emily. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-liang-wang-matthew-muckey.html
Serves her right. I once met a lady who knows her. Won’t name names. She’s just like her. Someone against people who are different. Good riddance, Ms. Skala.