Mob rule in Cleveland as students call rehearsal boycott

Mob rule in Cleveland as students call rehearsal boycott

News

norman lebrecht

September 22, 2023

The story so far.

A group of students complained about the rigiorous teaching methods of Carlos Kalmar, CIM’s director of orchestral studies. An ‘exhaustive’ legal investigation cleared Kalmar of any wrongdoing.

Many of the students have continued their protests, refusing to bring their instruments to rehearsal but maaking no fresh allegations against Kalmar and maintaining their anonymity.

CIM president Paul Hogle and provost Scott Harrison have taken no action, except to cancel the opening concert. Their indecision can only fuel further chaos. None of this bodes well for music studies at CIM.

Here’s a pro-student VAN magazine piece.

Comments

  • Michael says:

    Irrespective of whether or not Kalmar broke the law, when your egregious behaviour leads to the total loss of loyalty and respect from those whom you seek to lead, you are no longer a leader and should find something else to do with your time.

    The unprecedented, passionate and co-ordinated response to his disastrous tenure, from students of all genders, speaks for itself.

    I am reminded of the President of the Spanish FA insisting he did nothing wrong and clinging onto power long after he lost the room …

    • MMcGrath says:

      Really? Sounds like the inmates (the students) are running the asylum. How does one handle tough and exacting treatment in the US Marines or any other branch of service? Do all drill instructors to jail? Do the students at Harvard’s notoriously tough MBA program now design the curriculum to make it less stressful (no more working past 9 pm)? How do we know these music students aren’t of the permanently outraged kind of individual so prevalent these days? Judging from the ongoing protesting, they disrespect the “he’s legal” finding and they obviously want this instructor’s professional demise. That’s NOT legal, by the way. As I said: inmates running the asylum based on this read.

      Finally, this article paints a picture that, in the US, it’s not enough for an instructor to behave legally, but that he also needs to win the ‘most favored teacher’ award on a bi-weekly basis. Note: Nobody has yet mentioned any requisite musical and pedagogical qualifications. This situation in Cleveland seems to be less about music and leadership and more about the pleasing-the-tuition-paying-customer ratings game and students’ manufactured outrage and grievances.

      I wonder, based on this article: What do Americans do with people they don’t like or with whom they disagree? Oh, right, they first denounce them and then, if that fails, shoot them. Where have we seen such behavior before? Mmmm.

      • Jon H says:

        Better it be only one semester, or 4 years (rather than 30 years). In the workplace, one has to deal with difficult personalities for extended periods of time. If you can’t handle it, it’s not necessarily them that’s leaving anytime soon. Gotta learn to deal with it – say something in the back of your head – and move on.

      • Michael says:

        How extraordinarily revealing! You believe the relationship between budding professional musicians and their lecturers ought to be akin to that of ‘inmates’ to their prison wardens?

        Or soldiers to their drill sergeants?

        No. These young people deserve to be treated with common decency, which does not include accepting sexual harassment and discrimination as just a normal, to be expected side-effect of working in the music industry.

        The logic seems to be that the classical music business is full of disrespectful bullies, abusing their status to harass and belittle underlings, so the students ought to just get used to it while they are at the Conservatoire.

        Or, they can start to dismantle those abysmal practices, at the Conservatoire. It looks like they have chosen the latter.

        It’s wonderful to see these students standing up for themselves and saying enough is enough. They were there. They were in those rehearsal rooms. They know first- hand how they were treated and how their female colleagues were treated, differently, more harshly, worse, and they are voting with their feet. Good.

        Honestly, and I say this as an educator, if in the 21st Century you don’t know how to teach and inspire high-level, high-performing students and demand high standards from them without resorting to rudeness, insults, bullying and abuse, find another job.

  • Maria says:

    What’s the matter with human beings!

  • John Porter says:

    Title IX is commonly misunderstood. Faculty think that because they were cleared of something related to Title IX, that they did nothing wrong. There are plenty of things you can do wrong that are not relevant to Title IX. You may not be discriminating on the basis of gender, for instance, but you may be mistreating people. You can be rude, insulting, a bad teacher, play favorites, and oh so much more, that violate university codes of conduct, but not Title IX, and be ousted for it. My guess, is that if enough of these students are up in arms, there’s a very good reason for it. Say goodbye to Kalmar, one way or the other.

  • Moenkhaus says:

    Music students attend school to study with particular faculty. End of story. Now go to the CIM website and try to find a list of faculty by discipline or any other way. Buried in a list with all staff.

    Who would want to attend a hot mess like CIM when faculty are employed on one year contracts? No teacher stability, $40k tuition, run by three middle-aged white men and an orchestra that incorporates hazing as a training element.

    • PaulD says:

      What does the race of the management have to do with it? Should CIM hire Lizzo? (She’s been accused of sexual harassment and running a hostile workplace.)

    • NotToneDeaf says:

      Middle-aged, white and male?!?!?!? How dare they?? So incredibly offensive.

    • perturbo says:

      Just go to cim.edu and click on “Areas of Study”; scroll down, and there is a faculty list arranged by what they teach. Now, was that so hard?

  • Phil Corman says:

    Good for the students. They pay a lot of money for this and should be heard if one of their teachers is a problem. Back in the day, there was a conducting teacher at Juilliard, who was once prominent, that basically used constant humiliation as his primary teaching method. The school didn’t ever think twice about it and it did not do good things for these aspiring conductors. I say listen to the students, particularly when it is many, as they know more about what’s happening than the administration and board.

    • Couperin says:

      Otto was great!

      • Sheila Simmons says:

        It’s not Otto that is being referred to and not Jean Morel or Jorge Mester…Those who were there in the late 70s know who Phil is talking about.

    • Piston1 says:

      That’s interesting: one of them became music director of the New York Philharmonic. He now leads one of the best orchestras in Germany. That was a very different time and has nothing to do with what’s going on at CIM.

  • Respecting instrumentalists says:

    One lady in the photo you describe in your headline is wearing a head scarf . You can be cited for religious and cultural intolerance for referring to people wearing a headscarf as part of a mob.
    This is unprecedented for sure for music students to walk out of rehearsals in protest which definitely hints at extremely poor conditions for the musicians . People
    At the top or elites get away with abuse of power and breaking rules and laws all the time . Not all decent human behavior can be defined in a set of rules . Why should there be new allegations when they were ignored and shut down in the first place even by comments on this forum by non orchestral players with connections to elite power players .
    It’s a fact that the structure of the orchestra already gives the conductor an enormous amount of power over the musicians . Interestingly ,an article on this subjects mentions the wife of the conductor who had his concert at Cim cancelled made allegations as a female violin student against Preucil who resigned at Cim . Break the cycle of abuse . Don’t marry abusive people just because you were abused as a student at Cim , as you claimed . All of these students voices and silent protesters should be heard, felt and taken seriously . When they look to replace this conductor , choose based on merit and not on identity politics or filling quotas .

  • Stop this says:

    Something is not right here. This would have AlL the teachers in korea be fired and in jail. Stop it now!

  • Max Raimi says:

    If you get into an elite conservatory like CIM, you desperately want to be a professional musician and have already worked hard and sacrificed to make progress along this path. These kids are clearly not lazy and are highly motivated. If Kalmar has alienated them to this extent, he is clearly failing at his job. Furthermore, the high incidence of physical injury among the orchestra musicians reported in the article is alarming. CIM should find a new conductor as quickly as possible.

  • Couperin says:

    Article just makes the students sound over sensitive. US orchestras are in trouble or every musician out there can’t take the heat. Maestro just sounds demanding. I haven’t heard a SINGLE anecdote about what he actually did. Just that he is intense in rehearsal and that there’s a perceived gender bias that is also never accepted explained. I was 6 years at b Juilliard in the Otto Werner Mueller days. Yes he was an insufferable crank but our response? We laughed, made fun of him mercilessly behind his back, and swapped stories at the pub. We didn’t cry and protest and leave rehearsals. GROW UP!

    • in the biz says:

      I get it – but the world has changed. Just because you (and I if truth be known) were subject to all but abusive conductors doesn’t mean it is the best way to learn.

      Thanks to Max Raimi above. I couldn’t agree more.

    • MistakeByTheLake says:

      Exactly. These students sound like a bunch of snowflakes. When you start working in the professional world, mommy and daddy won’t be there.

  • DH says:

    Send in Alma!

  • Moenkhaus says:

    Haha…..looks like someone/s from CIM is downvoting all the posts critical of their recalcitrant leadership! Anyone else smell some regime change in the air?

  • Teagan says:

    Good for them. Classical musicians have been taught to be passive and docile for too long. And then we wonder why orchestral players just stand around wringing their hands over the state of the industry or weeping when their work dries up. These students are taking their environment and careers into their own hands and creating the institution they want, and I’m looking forward to having them in our orchestras and our union.

  • Doug says:

    The VAN article is utterly damning, and I mean of CIM in general. If their assessment of CIM is correct (and I see no reason to believe otherwise) then Kalmar’s hiring and his behavior is just symptomatic of the disease prevalent at the institution. Big dreams but nothing grounded in on the ground reality. Very, very sad.

  • In the biz says:

    CIM makes the mistake of thinking that an “enhanced” orchestral studies course for 4 years will increase the hiring of their students by professional orchestras.

    No.

    There have always been CIM students hired right out of school by major orchestras (as in those offering a contract with livable salary and benefits). These students and those of all other conservatories or universities are hired after winning auditions on their individual playing, not their student orchestra experiences. Auditions will require orchestral excerpts along with a concerto. These are learned with teachers, coaches, and lots of practice room time – not from longer full orchestra rehearsals.

  • Steve says:

    Defenders of abusers, including the proprietor: there are abusers about in this world, so get comfortable with being abused. Fantastic advice.

  • MistakeByTheLake says:

    Bonkers that Hogle makes $450K a year to run CIM especially after helping to oversee a work stoppage in Detroit. Yikes.

  • Thornhill says:

    I find it interesting that the knee-jerk reaction when there are disputes between the musicians and management is to side with musicians, but when it comes to music students and school administrators, it’s the administration.

    Have people ever considered for a moment that what the students are saying is largely accurate?

  • Animal Farm says:

    Sorry, but let’s call it as it is. This vast majority of this new generation of students just wants to get on with the work. But there is a vocal, aggressive, militant minority that is offended by everything, and imposes its own quasi-religious view of what constitutes “offensive” behavior onto the rest of the student body. Individual students are then afraid to go against the militants, for fear of the very same autocracy these militants seem to object to in Kalmar. They don’t seem to care that a lengthy and independent investigation led by a state’s attorney cleared the accused of T9 offenses. They just want to exercise their mob grievance to end the man’s career because they don’t like him. After all, not one actual story has emerged in all of this, no single incident that points to a fireable offense, hence the exculpatory findings of the investigation. This is a new form of anti-hierarchy, anti-perceived-white-patriarchy wokeness on steroids. It is another form of bullying and the school, dependent on the students for their fees, may have to capitulate, even though they already did the right thing by investigating thoroughly. How democratic is that? I hope CIM takes the Cornell approach and politely tells the snowflakes where to get off. Call their bluff! They are way out of line. Get back to practicing and preparing yourselves for the real world!

  • Larry W says:

    CIM is in a race to become the leading orchestra program in the U.S. In order to achieve that, they need a conductor like Larry Rachleff, who built the Shepherd School Symphony into, arguably, the finest university/conservatory orchestra in the U.S. He was demanding, but fair, and above all an educator. He taught the young musicians how to listen to themselves, their section, and their orchestra. Along with the earned support of an outstanding faculty, this student orchestra experience helped them to not only win jobs, but keep them.

    We have read recently about talented players not getting tenure or even being dismissed. Great individual playing may win a job, but playing the orchestra game keeps it. That includes playing with your stand partner, making an emotional contribution to the music, and good social interaction.

  • James says:

    Students should not be dictating to the faculty and staff who is allowed to teach.

    If a student won’t fulfill their requirements, they should fail the course. In the most egregious cases, continued failure should result in expulsion.

    What’s going to happen if they join a professional organization? Are they really so entitled that they think they can pick management?

  • Sol Rizzato (He/They) says:

    Fantastic journalism by VAN Magazine. I am so proud of my CIM student colleagues.

  • Terry Orcutt says:

    Effing troll. Spend a few minutes to learn what’s actually going on.

  • Jerome Hoberman says:

    There was a similar episode at Peabody Conservatory, more than 40 years ago, before Title IX or any standardized structures. The orchestra conductor — who, like Kalmar, had come from being MD of a significant mid-size American orchestra — was felt to be erratic and abusive, and the orchestra struck. The compromise eventually worked out was that he was relieved of his orchestra-conducting duties, remained the orchestra conducting teacher, and conducted the contemporary music ensemble, for which he was eminently suited. By the time I joined his studio he had mellowed considerably, and was a delightful mentor for the two years I was a member of that studio.

  • David A. Boxwell says:

    MY orchestral studies director failed to create a safe and nurturing space for ME and literally violated ME by not calling ME by MY preferred pronouns!

  • Robert Holmén says:

    VAN article: “With conductor Carlos Kalmar, the conservatory hoped to become a mecca of orchestral training….”

    Is he truly of such stature? His bio reveals a set of brief and/or minor positions.

    Is his tutelage of some unusually valuable nature?

    Or is there such an excess of music schools that it is hard to staff them with capable teachers?

    When I read articles about graduates of music schools I don’t think I’ve ever seen them say “I wish the conductor had been more ruthless.”

    Instead they say, “I wish they had taught us more about money.”

  • Reds fan says:

    LOL the URL says “cincy” which is whole different city (Cincinnati). smart

  • Guest 123 says:

    Having worked with Carlos I can confirm that he is harsh and a creep. I can also confirm that our younger generations are soft and incapable of dealing with conflict. If he was cleared from any legal wrong doing then students can choose to attend CIM or find a different school.

  • Been There says:

    As with so many of these discussions, it seems to come down to “I’ve been through this so everyone should have to go through it” vs. “I’ve been through this and I don’t want anyone else to have to go through it.” I’ll go with the empathy of the latter crowd, thanks. Kalmar should go.

  • Westfan says:

    All I know is the Oregon Symphony sounds a lot better since he left. Surely the CIM can do better? Perhaps not.

  • Nothing Burger says:

    I read the VAN article and still can’t figure out what exactly Kalmar has been accused of. Just a vague “he’s mean” and “he picks on people.” But this can mean a lot of things – can anyone at all provide an example of what him “picking on people” actually looks like?

  • Walter says:

    1) It’s easy to jump to national trend stories [gen z snowflakes, wokeness, the plight of the european man etc] but the most interesting reporting here is less about CK’s behavior and more about faculty & funders clearly not onboard with the vision of building a training orchestra with a JV Curtis attached to it

    2) At a time when even “top five” orchestras are shrinking their subscription series, the reasoning behind the orchestra 2.0 program is pedagogically questionable. Most symphony musicians today are accomplished chamber musicians and teachers too, and this seems like something you’d have wanted in the 80s. Shrinking the school does seem to make good sense, but doubling down on orchestral specialization is puzzling

    3) We’ve gotten used to hearing “title IX” as a euphemism for sexual assault when between the lines it seems to be about a pervasive gender climate and a broader culture of abuse (irrespective of gender). The title IX coordinator seems to have done nobody any favors here, saying too much and too little. The writer could have done a better job clarifying the nature of the [cleared] allegations

    4) To all those complaining about students as “customers” to be satisifed well, yeah. Welcome to the world, nice to have you here. Anyone capable of getting into a shrunken CIM (even tuition free, which, we’ll see) is capable of getting into a top-notch SOM studio in a less oppressive environment with nurturing mentors. Is the CIM orchestral placement rate really going to be that much better?

    5) We should applaud the bravery of a young journalist out on an island in this story and tiptoeing into litigious waters without the supportive resources of [say] a NYT or WaPo legacy media brand. This is a carefully reported piece where where the writer puts credibility on the line and risks burning bridges–without being an innuendo-filled hatchet job

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