Sex abuse claims hit the Danish

Sex abuse claims hit the Danish

main

norman lebrecht

December 01, 2020

The Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra has been engulfed by multiple claims of sexual abuse, some of them fairly recent.

Here’s a news report.

Here’s a direct accusation.

And here‘s its direct rebuttal by the person accused. It’s to do with bassoons.

Danish is getting a bad name.

 

 

Comments

  • Gustavo says:

    A very explicit shot of Danish pastries.

  • Paul Dawson says:

    I rather wish I hadn’t read the links. Depressing. It seems clear that one of them is a genuine victim and the other (probably) isn’t, but how can anyone decide which when the evidence is confined to “He says/she says”.

    • Tamino says:

      Who cares what we outsiders think about it, but since she is asking for it by turning this into a social media witch hunt: They seem both losers in this. He made a mistake of judgement, of starting to hit on a colleague, a colleague directly inferior to him, she the timed contract, he the tenured solo player. That’s at least stupid, probably also against employment rules, even though not illegal usually.
      But she sounds very troubled, by the hot air language she now uses from the textbook of fake entitled victimization. What is her objective to do this social media mud throwing nonsense? Does it give her gratification? Attention she is missing?
      It seems to be a story of two young people dating and partying together, that had no happy end. So far so common. Life goes usually on. But what happened then?

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    The trouble is the definition of sexual assault and harassment; the ground ‘rules’ keep morphing. The fact that the DRSO has taken no action – in this day and age of #metoo – would suggest there’s something missing in this claim. Probably actual evidence of a criminally recognized form of sexual assault. You’ve got to get that 100% right if you’re to proceed down the path to success in a criminal jurisdiction, destroying the reputation and career of the offender and putting yourself in a very public and nasty space. Remember, even serial murderers get their day in court.

    • Karl says:

      It’s not the DRSO’s responsibility to press criminal charges. What he did was not a crime because Denmark has not passed explicit ‘yes means yes’ consent laws. She did report the incident to the police. It’s their responsibility to decide if it warrants prosecution.

  • drummerman says:

    NL, if this is your attempt at “humor,” I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong subject to parody. Not funny. We, your loyal readers, expect more.

  • Karl says:

    He wrote this:
    “During the autumn of 2014 I was flirting and giving attention to a female colleague in the bassoon group of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.”

    Guilty. Flirting is sexual harassment now. Don’t do it. Find strangers online to have sex with instead.

  • Bone says:

    His story reads pretty straightforward. I’d like to see her story side-by-side so the middle is easier to find.

  • Accused one says:

    Women in 2014: He’s not my type
    Women in 2020: I REMEMBERED!!! I REMEMBERED!!! He touched me!! 6 years 3 months 12 days 5 hours 48 minutes ago!!!

  • Some people are crazy says:

    Take out the popcorn, it gets better!
    Here’s her response to his Facebook post (linked last above):
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10164777568565341&id=643430340

    • Tamino says:

      It’s getting sad. Why is she doing this?
      Reading the stories I have the question:
      WHO advised her to escalate this, a couple of months after the incident where he touched her breast, to the level of filing an abuse report?
      He was gone to another country by then, not in the orchestra she was playing in at that time anymore.
      She had met with him and talked with him in the weeks after the incident, also privately. They posed on pictures together in the days after the incident this story revolves around.
      Something is not adding up, unless there is some other agenda.

      • Karl says:

        Get with the victim mentality times. She’s going to suffer a lifetime of trauma because of that incident. That’s why we have passed ‘yes means yes’ explicit consent laws here in the US. Men can’t just claim it was a misunderstanding with laws lie that in effect.

  • Alexander says:

    Humm… it goes to show, better to keep it to yourself… even if there was an “abuse”… really no one wants to hear about it… when we can’t tell whose story is the true one… just my opinion, of course 😉

    • Observer says:

      “even if there was an ‘abuse’…really no one wants to hear about it…”

      Therein lies the problem. “Even if it’s true, just stuff it away inside yourself, because it’s uncomfortable for me to think about.”

      It’s called denial. Not exactly sage advice for individuals or society.

      • Tamino says:

        He says they were cuddling before he touched her breast and she reacted positively. He says after he touched her and she strongly reacted negatively, he backed off. He says they saw each other socially and talked amicably in the weeks after. She in her follow up rebuttal denies none of it. Logically it seems to me that she has no substantial case at all. Or she is Instigated by someone else to go ahead with this, for unknown reasons. Something is not adding up.

        • Karl says:

          Didn’t you follow the Weinstein trial? The woman all stayed in contract with him and sent him e-mails after they claimed he assaulted them. The same with Cosby. Psychologists and feminists have convinced people that women react that way after being assaulted.

      • Alexander says:

        maybe yes,,, but still… better to keep her «dirty laundry» to herself 😉 because it looks much like another woman simply “remembering” after the fact…. just my opinion, of course 😉

  • Gustavo says:

    The sound of the bassoon is associated with dirty old grandpa.

  • Karl says:

    I did some googling and see that the woman in this story says she was sexually abused at a young age by a relative.
    https://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-music-ensemble-gives-voice-to-victims-of-sexual-abuse-1.23967997

    The relative never got into trouble so now she is taking it out on any man who gets close to her. I’ve seen women with abusive pasts do this to other men I know.

  • Interested observer says:

    I commented a few weeks ago on the singer teacher who resigned.
    There are so many cases in Denmark like this one above which go right up to the head of the orchestras and royal academy.

    Numerous unreported cases for all to see with teachers overstepping the mark – when commented on by colleagues or students they slip away with “that’s how he’s always been but he is so talented”.

    Unrelated to abuse of people, the abuse of power by the main players who control the money, the grants, the appointments (in the royal academy often without auditions) is rotten to the core: Funding is sucked up by a few selected artists or chamber groups (for themselves, their festivals and their projects), whilst other orchestras and institutions are fighting for survival.

    Something has to change, both with people and power abuse in the oh-so-idyllic (on the surface) country.

  • MOST READ TODAY: