Yale denies offer to Yundi Li
NewsYale School of Music has released a statement denying a Chinese social media whisper that it had offered a professorship to the pianist Yundi Li. A link to that effect received 13.1 million clicks.
Yund Li is under official isolation in China after being arrested, allegedly in the company of a female prostitute.
Yale School of Music Dean Robert Blocker has released the following statement: ‘Many people in the Yale School of Music and beyond have asked my office about an assertion being widely circulated in Chinese social media that pianist Yundi Li has been offered a position on YSM’s faculty. No such faculty appointment has been made.’
Every music school in the west should be competing for his signature.
Why?
This pianist has apparently been convicted of a soliciting offence. One doesn’t know with whom he was consorting. The woman might have been trafficked.
Music schools are trying to clean up their acts, not sully them.
Some students are minors, others are young adults, and their teachers need to be respectable and of good character.
The University of Michigan music department would be a perfect fit for Yundi Li.
It is common for the Chinese communists to use prostitution accusation against their opponents. Are you naive not to see the difference between a system of laws and a totalitarian dictature or are you a propagandist ?
Indeed, most prostitution is organized crime and human trafficking, thus most prostitution is rape, of powerless trafficked women and girls.
All prior discussions about Yundi Li have focussed on the communist party but not on trafficked victims and those in far superior social and economic positions to exploit them for “pay” (that goes directly to the pimps (most likely male)).
Yundi Li, who admitted to the basic facts, is a consumer, a participant, not some inadvertent bystander, in this socio-economic-criminal cycle of women exploitation.
Most prostitutes do it quite willingly. They’re not “powerless.”
This is all so silly. I feel like we’ve regressed to the Comstock age or something.
What year is this? 1880 or something?
Gimme a break. What a morally intolerant age this has become. And maybe the woman WANTED to be a prostitute. That doesn’t count?
“Every music school in the west [sic] should be competing for his signature.”
Indeed, not many professors in the West have experience performing Chinese pop.
I am more in favor of legal ( meaning that the participants are involved totally of their own free will) than I am of organized fleecing humanity for riches by trading this non-sense that some young, in all likelihood a genius, was the son of god, born of sexual intercourse ( begotten son: look it up), with whom, to save man from his sin, what sin? Prostitution is one of the many lies taught to the public as a crime/sin for money reasons. We are facing many problems. Let’s do away with the Garry tales.
Is there an english translation for that?
I wonder if Yale is splitting hairs. Just like Clinton long ago was accused of an indiscretion in a hotel room, responded that he “was never alone in a hotel” with whichever plaintiff it was. (Well, nobody is ever alone in a hotel, as long as there’s a night clerk or patrolman somewhere on the premises.)
“We’ve heard about rumors that he was offered a position on our faculty. No such faculty appointment has been made.”
Close enough for the casual reader to say “oh — well never mind then,” but imprecise enough to leave open the possibility that an offer was made but then withdrawn.
He is so handsome, could have had any woman really. That he would have chosen to use a prostitute instead seems a bit weird.
“[C]ould have had any woman really.”
He probably had no interest in becoming the next Dutoit or Gatti, or even the next Aziz Ansari.
It’s funny – in those cases, there never seemed to be a shortage of people saying “if he just wanted a shag with no strings attached, why didn’t he just hire a prostitute?” *shrug*
I didn’t mean in the sense you suggested. Not assaulting women or sleeping around but just finding a partner. Maybe this is much harder if you’re famous for some.
He is a fine pianist. Period.
At a minimum, you’d want to know if he could teach before offering a teaching position.
Common sense dictates so, but the sad thing is a lot of conservatories and elite music schools make faculty hires based on things like prestige, name-recognition, and awards, rather than actual teaching ability.
Maybe Li Yundi should give a few hundred quids to Linacre College (now named Bikini Airlines Thao College) and have an endowed chair there. That college is a whore for donations. Not enough to sell their name but enough for a piano music chair.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/nov/03/oxford-college-to-change-its-name-after-155m-donation
“No such appointment has been made” is not a denial of an offer being made, it could mean he has not yet accepted. Since he has admitted to the crime it is no longer “allegedly”.
An interesting fact, in China, most of YUNDI’s albums currently in heavy demand and have price explosion in the online shopping because classical fans were scared that his recordings would be asked to be removed from music streaming services. These albums average price has doubled to ten times, and some have even increased by more than 20 times.
There are also those who pity for his talent, many people have searched his previous concert videos and enjoy music. But in China, some video streaming websites delisted his videos spontaneous, which have also led to a surge in the number of clicks and downloads of current videos.
Check the dean’s profile, he has links with Beijing. He is Honorary Professor of Piano at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing. Could there be something more?