Boston Symphony leaks a bullying investigation
OrchestrasWe’ve had it confirmed by a number of insiders that Tanglewood V-P Asadour Santourian, recruited by Gail Samuel, was under investigation by the Boston Symphony’s HR department for bullying staff members and pressuring them to resign.
There has been a rush of departures in the past year. Our sources say Santourian resigned before facing a negative HR ruling.
Staff describe the atmosphere as ‘toxic’. One senior staffer quit Tanglewood for the Boston Pops, unable to bear the tension.
The BSO has made no comment on internal unrest that preceded Samuel and Santourian’s departure.
Not a surprise in the least as Mr. Santourian is a living example of much that is wrong within the classical music industry. Nearly 20 years ago, I left Aspen (where I was a Conducting Fellow) nearly 2 weeks early because of a toxic environment largely created by this man. And his tenure with the Minnesota Orchestra is as equally distressing and depressing.
Oh believe me…I know. Might as well hire RuPaul to run things.
Weird bringing up RuPaul, he is very successful and does a fine job running things
She brought him on. Maybe she can think abt what she did on her way back to California. Perhaps, some self reflection -introspection on her part is needed instead of woke joke nonsense.
What was she thinking bringing this person onboard?
The amount of team members who left due to the abusive environment was crazy. Thank goodness the organization is having the “investigation”. Though not holding the breathe, given how rampant corruption, buddy buddy system, and neoponomics, run the feces show in US classical music industries.
Many miss the days of Joseph Silverstein, Ronald Feldman, Charles Kavalovski, Norm Bolter, Lois Schaeffer, Chester Schmitz, they could run that place with their eyes closed without this awoke bs.
Trojan Horse?
All great musicians (I’ll add my teacher, Vic Firth) but they did not “run the place.”
Feldman is alive and well…
Not only Ronnie Feldman is still alive so is Chuck Kavalovski, Chester Schmitz, Norm Bolter. They could blow circles around this carpetbagger “leadership”….
The musicians are not the administrators!
The staff members who have been bullied should lawyer up. Bullying has highly severe, almost incapacitating consequences on one’s mental health. Very important to understand: these effects emerge slowly, with the worst impact taking place a few years later.
Not everyone is that weak, sorry.
I still want to know what he did specifically, and why. Instead of all this name-calling about him and umbrage, what exactly did he do?
This has nothing to do with being weak. Bullying is to mental health like any serious injury would be to your physical body. The only difference is that the symptoms from bullying show up slowly and later in life. However, it does affect everyone. The degree to which it affects depends on the seriousness and length of the bullying. Hope this helps!
Never saw a workplace that did not have bullying. Sadly it isn’t illegal.
… but the damage it causes to one’s wellbeing is serious. Therefore, injuring anyone (physically, or mentally) is just wrong and should be pursued by legal means.
Did Samuel bring in Santourian to do her dirty work by instigating these purges?
That’s a reasonable pt. Maybe she did this to play: “good cop, bad cop” corporate games for them to carry out their cult-like awake plan.
It is heartening to still see the Board and HR department of a top classical music institution with the courage and integrity to investigate serious misconduct, of various kinds. These are core values that have long been buried elsewhere.
The BSO (and POPS) seem to have a number of problems over the years. There was an issue with John Williams, to which I can attest from playing under Fiedler and seeing the comments written on the music by musicians. I pray that most of the resignations have not been musicians.
Thanks for your prayers – I’m sorry you don’t think that the administrators matter.
Remember than issue well with Johnny Williams. Thank you Sir.
Careful, John Williams is considered hallowed ground around this site. Nobody pays attention to the fact that the long series of Boston Pops recordings he made for Philips are about as exciting as watching paint dry (or as boring as generic dust).
The issue with Williams was nothing like this. Basically the musicians – mostly from the high horse of the BSO, feeling bored in the Pops branch – acted undisciplined and very disrespectful towards him in rehearsals. Eventually he threw the towel in frustration, they went through a moderation and continued for almost ten more years. Nothing like what‘s happening now.
It was a paper airplane for his “music”; he walked out due to perceived disrespect by the real musicians who had to play pops/other low tier music.
Who wouldn’t want to play in such a robust Pops season? So much more exciting than Beethoven’s 5th 20 times in a year.
What a satisfaction it must be for him now, to be begged by the greatest orchestras in the world to come and perform his music with them.
That’s bc they’re begging for money. The halls are anemic. They need warm seats.
No. Not at all. Neither Vienna nor Berlin Phil needed those concerts to fill seats.
Verbal abuse was common place at the Boston Flops etc. The person was radioactive and brought on board by No 2 careerist who is awake bc she’s married to a black man.
The principal requirement at many US orchestras appears to be not being Anglo Saxon/white/caucasoid. That’s the metric.
Keep it up, with find remembrances of dictator style show me your corona papers and mask obsessiveness, the ship sinks further.
Lost a lot of patrons. The so called leaders likely will be scratching their collective heads clueless as to what went wrong. Digging their heels in deeper as they deny reality.
When myth meets reality, myth wins-Morris Berman.
Right wing ,tin foil hat lore,,,,
The racism, white grievance and anti-vac/mask nonsense you spew speaks volumes.
Garbage in, garbage out-Gandhi & Groucho Marx
You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. The principal requirement in the US to run these orchestras is that 1) you have money and 2) you’ll bring in more money.
That these people happen to be women, or people of colour, or whatever have you, is only a surface detail that only people like you enjoy fussing about. The real draw was that they came from affluent backgrounds and would bring more sponsorship.
Many of the newly wealthy like to support arts organizations in an attempt to appear progressive, this so that nobody in the general public looks too closely at how they unethically acquired their wealth. This means that there is a certain surface level of pandering to “wokeness”, but at the end of the day it’s a money grabbing endeavour and it’s all the same rich people shaking hands and scratching each other’s backs. So whether they be women, people of colour or whatever have you, money is their primary interest, not wokeness.
It’s unfortunate to allegations of bullying and I hope it gets snuffed out before yet another prestigious orchestra eats itself from the inside, but the problem is not and never will be that they hire women or people of colour, but if that’s what you’re getting out of this then I bet you’re a pleasant person to be around and I hope you have a very nice time.
Are you an american? Because that analysis is spot on–except that for auditions and community programs–YEP–the requirement is not to be white. Just ask the former principal clarinest of Nashville-that US empire reality speaks volumes Sir.
Most US-ers only care about money-it’s in their DNA. Hucksters and hu$tlers. Why would playing Mahler or Boston Pops music be any different.. It’s all abt money. It does NOT matter what ones melanin content is, or what their genitalia happens to be. They ONLY care abt bringing in $ from wealthy stupid people–be it black, lesbian, oriental , Jew, WASP, whatever, ..they all want the $–greed and status.
As others have stated–Classical music is old niche. It’s dying. And it’s largely irrelevant. So good luck in the business enterprise masquerading as a country.
Sorry to hear that classical music is dying….As a music instructor at the College & HS level, we discussed current popular music in depth. Without fail, most students indicated that they actually didn’t like current popular music but listened to it bc it was the “only music available”!
Has everything to do with diversity theater and how they went about it, add in the corona show me your papers/mask obsessions, one is objectively seeing low turnouts to plays, musical shows, classical events, etc..
They use “people of color” schtick to draw in money. All of sudden they bring in black conductors, black singers, black composers, latinos, mexican music, mexican christmas…in MASS !? That’s cray cray.
As a black person, I find this vile. It’s pandering. And it’s so wrong on so many levels. That’s why classical musak failed. Hopefully, the company men from the bring in dinero committees/donater leadership can entice more newly rich folks to donate because that’s all they really have as they strum away on the 1 string guitar with declining audiences post-corona tactics and playing the awake cult anglo thing.
Melissa,
I wish what you wrote isn’t true but sadly, it is.
As for the jabs and papers, that is unfolding into the biggest medical scandle in history.
I just don’t understand – even after 35 years in the work world – bullying. I don’t have the energy or the tolerance for stress to be nasty to people.
Sadly, it’s the modus operandi of many in the workforce. Worse yet, most are masters at masking their damaging behavior. I’m not a fan in general of HR departments, but they should step up their sensitivity to these issues and listen to victims of this behavior, most often those without a voice.
It is a personality related behavior.
In the workplace, it is a very cruel and damaging, yet common tactic to drive employees away due to job insecurity, feeling threatened, or other covert agendas.
More here: http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/adult-bullying.html
Many are personality disordered individuals. They likely need psychiatric help. Yet there’s no health system in the US. It’s sad.
Oh, there’s a health system in the US. It just sucks. No market forces to answer to anymore.
Maybe they just have strong opinions and are right much of the time. What were the specific issues that he apparently tormented people over?
Not his attitude. His claims.
Indeed, stress can be very nasty to people. Good on you for standing up it against it.
Great points, life’s far too short to play corporate bully games-=but such behaviors are rampant in US organizations.
When you’re empty on the inside, and have nothing to really live for (money is not a value), then that’s how many persons act. They hate themselves and project that anger onto others. Many American historians have written about the employment at will/whim US work place disaster.
Maybe the Board who hired Samuel should resign. Bye – bye Barbara Hostetter!!!
Her own foundations board appears to be a neponomics fest with mexican/latino head. Good PR-marketing to the ignorant rich donor classes
As stated on other threads on this site, Santourian is widely known to be abusive, arrogant and nasty. Many in the industry have been shocked that his career has continued as long as it has. The conductors who have enabled him – chief among them David Zinman and Bob Spano – should be ashamed. And perhaps now is a good time to turn a spotlight on Alan Fletcher and find out why he allowed this behaviour to go on at Aspen for years and years. Mr. Wachs, who writes above, is one of many, many artists who have been scarred by their experiences at this “esteemed” festival/school at the hands of Santourian, and by extension, Fletcher.
Maybe after this ad hoc investigation we can get to the bottom of why all this rampant verbal and (physical) abuse exists in the us
I guess there may be some in-the-know BSO folks reading this so I ask out of curiosity – what’s the relationship between the BSO and the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston? Looking at the BSO calendar at their website, it almost appears that BSO has contracted out performance of music written before the early 1800s.
Well, BSO played Drumroll Symphony few months ago and Mozart 40 on tour. I think there are two different orchestras with two different ideas but I doubt they have some mutual agreement on the “old music”.
There is no relationship, other than the fact H&H rents Symphony for most of its performance. And in fact, if it is usually difficult for H&H to secure optimum dates in the hall in December for Messiah, which is falls during holiday Pops season.
On the other hand, quite a few current and former BSO administrators began their careers at H&H.
The reasons why the BSO (perhaps thankfully) avoids that corner of the repertoire are another subject.
Could you H and H going awake fads, etc…? Keep Handel and Haydn, Handel and Haydn please. A lot of neighbors from Eastie go there and enjoy the real music. Not being lectured to/talked down to or made to feel bad about the latest American craze, etc..We go there to listen to masterpieces and feel the artistry. Thank you.
Left out: could you imagine H and H going awake… Sorry.
I’m sorry you feel talked down to when people examine the mechanism of systemic oppression. Maybe you need to stop being so sensitive.
We do not want to be lectured before a concert on being awake. You can do the typical oppression blather and talk about using proper terminologies. we just want to hear music and relax not her the latest american trend ad nauseaum. thank you. eastie is a good place. a decent place. a place without that hipster blather
I’ve known Asadour since he was on staff with Greater Boston Youth Symphony 40 years ago. None of what is being said about him comes as a surprise. I had no idea he was still in arts management. He should not be.
I remember him from my first summer at Agony Village with GBYSO. He just seemed like a twit, but he wouldn’t have had much impact on students. I have no idea what was going on among staff. And I really had no idea then– turns out my instrumental teacher was getting to know one of the female students all too well, but I was too clueless to pick up on it.
Can we just take a moment to recognize that Asadour was allegedly not a great colleague to people; “bullying” etc… But it’s not just him…it’s the people in power that enabled it to happen. Especially in Aspen; for 14/15 years? Or: was he on better behavior there? Doesn’t sound like it.
Definitely not better behaviour in Aspen – in fact, arguably worse since he had no checks and balances on him since Fletcher couldn’t be bothered – or didn’t care. Definitely Fletcher and Spano should be called on to explain their enabling behaviour.
– Asadour left a wake of destruction after years at Aspen with the stories trotting as gossip through the industry – sad to see a repeat performance in Boston – what’s the real background between the two – rumor has it Asadour is God Father to Gail’s children –
Santourian is indeed the godfather of Samuels’ children (or child? I think there’s just one). They are very close friends having first worked together in Minnesota. Samuels wanted to bring Santourian to LA for years but cooler heads prevailed there. As the #1 at BSO she could finally prevail. It’s a shame she possesses such poor judgement. Clearly not CEO material.
Asadour is a toxic figure. It was frightening to witness his sadistic and punitive treatment of colleagues, especially students. Many students were scarred by his behavior at Aspen, where he acted like king. No surprise that this didn’t fly in Boston. Kudos to them.
It is important that his behavior come to light.
Exactly! I’m surprised that no one is bringing up the huge Tanglewood scandal with which he was involved a number of years ago. That alone should have been reason not to welcome him into the organization. (And no, I won’t elaborate.)
“Scarred”? Come on.
Imagine how Toscanini would be considered now! He’d be in jail for life.
Toscanini nowadays would be laughed at by the musicians for all his wildly poetic exclamations. They would never take him seriously because listening back to recorded examples of his antics, they now register as funny rather than scary.
Why did the trustee chairman-Barbara Hostetter hire this person? The person has an apparent track record in a pejorative sense.
Also, reading her foundation’s philanthropic website, curious, what are her qualifications for classical music directing? They seem to have all the “correct” buzzwords==”clean” “renewable” “resilient” “diverse” “community”, the usual “non profit” propaganda.
Perhaps, it is just fundraising and being well connected amongst wealthy Massachusetts people and being wasp connected. The board is represented, however, tokenism appears abundantly clear. If this is the “leadership” then there are maybe far greater structural pathologies at play.
The Board would not have had a direct voice in Samuels’ staff hirings. Although one hears that the Board did express their reservations about Santourian, Samuels wouldn’t listen. Hence, one of the many reasons the organization has lost faith in her.
Maybe not a direct role-but let’s all be honest–certainly “a” role in hiring this person. He’s a cog in the US work place. He’s part of the serious American work problem and emblematic of the dying US empire
There are a lot of lessons to be heeded from this BSO crises:
1) The Boomerang Effect is real… 😉
2) What you do unto others, will come back to you tenfold and more! Many tears were shed, and lives destroyed because of how this organization treated people and now it has come to bite them.
3) Venerable is not a word to be applied to humans. Divine deities get mad when humans want to be worshiped. BSO plays great but it is not to be worshipped, yet they hate anyone who doesn’t.
4) Oversized egos are bad, bad, bad. Come back down to earth. Will you?
5) Overconfidence in your “smarts” leads to big strategic mistakes and disasters, just like this situation with the CEO and VP of Tanglewood.
Etc.
PS: Why exactly don’t they pay their chorus? They have the money! $500,000,000 is a lot.
The chorus is free? Yep. With a half a BILLION in savings….
What was volpe’s salary+benies+pension again? Oh wow.
It’s yet another case of the Dunning-Kruger effect in a US empire corporation, and a heaping of Peter principle.
How do you “bully” adults?
Really. What does that word exactly mean? Being forceful to people who happen to disagree with you, and they don’t like it?
Seriously? You never heard of the concept of power, that comes with any hierarchy, and can be used responsibly as well as in abusive ways?
Here you go: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/201701/the-5-major-ways-adults-bully-each-other
“The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not as obvious.” ―Lundy Bancroft
Examples from the real world:
Being called at 10 pm by a music director to be told off for “playing too loudly” when it was the explicit direction of the week’s guest conductor.
Threatening to fire staff because their mental health struggles have now come to light.
Randomly adding responsibilities to staff workload which wasn’t outlined in the contract or job application documents, and then verbally abusing when this additional workload cannot be done for reasons of physical disability.
Belittling staff to their colleagues behind their backs for wanting to resign, citing their “weakness”
I worked with Santourian over 30 years ago. Even back then he was arrogant, demeaning, and more than a bit pompous. Fine musicians I know dismissed him as uneducated. It is shameful that Aspen tolerated his abusive behavior for so many years. They should be held accountable. The karma of the moment is refreshing. Bravo BSO!
Bravo for the BSO for hiring this imbecile with a track record of US bullying?
This all sounds and looks like a smear campaign against Samuel and Santourian. You think just suddenly after 10 months there is a toxic work environment? BSO has had a bad work environment for a very very long time, way before Samuels and Santourian came.
Leak an active investigation? Check.
Guilty until proven innocent? Check.
BSO has had a $5-7 Million dollar deficit for a number of years now. It is not sustainable. Samuel was brought in by the board to fix this. Who thinks this would not ruffle some feathers?