The weird and winsome ways of the late Blair Tindall
RIPWord came through last night that the author of Mozart in the Jungle died a week ago at the age of 63. Her book lifted the lid on many cruel and unnatural practices in American orchestras. It became a television series, making the former oboist moderately famous. But its success brought her little contentment or happiness. She was a strange person, an outlier, usually out on her own.
The figure at the bottom left of her book cover is recognisably Blair. The book is scathing and self-unsparing.
I met Blair before the book was published when she came to a talk I gave in New York. I read the book proofs and invited her onto my BBC programme. When the red light went on she was practically wordless. It was all I could do to extract a few platitudes from her before moving on to the next topic. Soon afterwards, she accused me of doing a hatchet job on her, of destroying her career. Media pals told me this was common for Blair: hot to hostile in an instant.
Her emails turned ever more vituperative and I stopped replying. Later, she submitted comments to slippeddisc.com, mostly balanced, polite and to the point.
Her last fiancé posted news of her death on Facebook: ‘Dear Friends of Blair, Chris Sattlberger, her fiancé writing. It is with immense sadness that I have to report the passing of my beloved partner and future wife Blair. We were going to be married in two weeks – alas, it was not to be. For her L.A. friends – I will organize a gathering in her memory at a future date. Please keep her in your memory as the amazing woman she was.’
May she rest in peace.
RIP Blair.
Spot-on description. My encounters with Blair were very similar. Her book did much to expose the workings of the classical music industry but it seems that she couldn’t handle the modest fame it brought her. She lashed out at a lot of would-be allies (and famously, one ex-husband). I hope she found some inner peace later in life.
Saddened to hear of the passing of Blair Tindall. She was a unique voice in a in an artform built on rigid conformity that conditions us to march in step from our earliest training, an artist who searched for truth and individuality while our performance practices are so codified we paint by numbers, and where acceptance is all too often a sham of careerist hypocrisy. Above all, she was one of the first women in classical music who said they weren’t going to tolerate abuse and exploitation anymore. She predated MeToo by twenty years. The contempt she faced was inevitable, but the light of her truth and the forces she set in motion will remain.
Admitting that one slept around to get gigs is not noble, she seemed quite unstable and vitriolic in my encounters with her as well as being not particularly good as an oboist.
Blair and I were friends and colleagues as young musicians in New York in the later ’70s. She was already a first-class oboist, great to work with, and a lot of fun to hang out with. We performed in the same chamber orchestra for over 5 years and later, she told me a lot about her adventures playing with the NY Philharmonic, subbing for her teacher. My favorite memory with Blair, though, was the night we were watching Saturday Night Live when they performed the famous Julia Child skit with Dan Ackroyd.
We were sitting on the couch, laughing so hard together – we just couldn’t stop. The last time we crossed paths was in the 80s when she and an ad hoc chamber group were performing all the Brandenburgs at Princeton University. I just happened to be walking by Alexander Hall and she was outside waiting for the remaining concerti to play out. We had lots of laughs over old times.
From the stories about her, one might gather that she was a sufferer of borderline personality disorder. It is disappointing that she hadn’t gotten the psychological help she needed.