CBSO proclaims zero tolerance
OrchestrasHere’s another screed of verbiage posted by Emma Stenning’s regime at Birmingham’s troubled orchestra. The text is lacking in specifics. It proclaims a welcome, then utters threats. You’d need a psychoanalyst to explain what prompted it. And another to explain why anyone would want to engage with such nanny talk.
Here’s the text:
Everyone is welcome
Anyone who engages with the CBSO is committing to being part of a culture that values compassion, respect, and joy.
As audience members, supporters, players, staff, visiting artists and participants, we are all accountable for how we behave. We should all consider how our actions or words may affect others and embrace the joint responsibility to ensure that everyone feels welcome, comfortable, and safe.
As an organisation, it is our aim to provide the best service we can, and we are also responsible for protecting our staff from abuse, hostility, and violence.
Everyone has a right to be heard and to be understood, and we will make sure that happens in a fair and consistent way. We understand how frustrating it can be when you feel that something is not right, and we support your need to express these feelings.
However, we expect everyone to act with courtesy and respect in their communications and actions, and we take a zero-tolerance approach to abuse of any nature (either in-person, over the phone or online) towards our staff, players or anyone working on our behalf.
Offensive behaviour can cause distress and worry, or even frighten and have a serious impact on mental wellbeing, which can impact on the service we are able to provide. Therefore, we do not expect any of our employees to feel they must deal with anyone who shows threatening, abusive, or violent behaviour.
Making a Complaint
We will always acknowledge and investigate complaints or concerns raised, and our complaints policy clearly explains how this process will be handled. However, that does not mean our staff, players, or others working on our behalf, will tolerate unacceptable behaviour under any circumstances.
These are the kind of behaviours we consider to be unreasonable or unacceptable:
Physical abuse, aggression, or violence.
Verbal abuse or aggression either in person, over the phone, via email or through any other digital platform (including derogatory or discriminatory remarks, shouting and rudeness).
Excessive letters, calls, emails or contact via social media.
Unreasonable demands (such as expecting a solution or answer immediately or taking up so much time that it impacts our ability to provide our services to other customers).
What we might do in the event of unacceptable behaviour:
If our staff, players, or anyone working on our behalf, are faced with unacceptable behaviour we may choose to end the conversation (either in person or over the phone) or stop engaging / responding (via email or social media). We will also document the interaction and escalate it to a senior member of staff.
We will always try to reach an arrangement which stops us taking formal action, including explaining why this behaviour is not acceptable and asking the person in question to respect our staff, players and anyone working on our behalf, at all times.
However, in extreme or continuous circumstances, we reserve the right to cancel tickets and/or stop someone attending or engaging with future CBSO events.
This is jaw dropping stuff!
Seems to suggest Ms Stenning has been suffering from what she suggests in this nannying press release.
Not surprisingly in view of the way she and her extraordinary single handed destruction of a top world class orchestra, she is now feeling the horror of those hundreds of people who are rightly concerned about the lowest ebb the direction of the CBSO is going and are contacting her and the team to express their dismay in the strongest terms.
Ms Stenning has brought all of this on herself, and as CEO she is now feeling the heat as a result of her extraordinary running of the band.
She should resign in disgrace and go before she is pushed… She’s barking mad, out of her depth and dangerous to the future of the CBSO
When was her last psychological assessment? It seems to me that she needs help.
Pretty sure those have been the T&Cs for years and they look pretty standard. Just for some reason Norman Lebrecht has a really vendetta against this woman for some unknown reason. I bet if the CEO was a middle-aged white guy, nobody would bat an eyelid but as soon as a woman is appointed he is scouring the CBSO website looking for trouble.
If anyone needs a psychological assessment, it is the journalist who seems to be hounding this poor woman for some unknown reason.
What are you actually talking about? The orchestra is on the best form it’s ever been. The only thing destroying the orchestra is this poisonous persistent online trolling of The CBSO. It’s incredibly upsetting for all involved in the company. Norman, I beseech you – please put an end to this now.
it is not a “troubled orchestra”.
Utter nonsense Ms Davis! Speak to any member of the orchestra, management team, Symphony Hall staff, friends of CBSO, faithful regular audience , the music press, any other professional orchestral musician et al, to find the complete opposite of what you are suggesting.
What is your experience of Ms Stenning btw? Her PA or flatmate , or both?!
Utter nonsense, Bored Muso! I have friends in the CBSO who don’t share your view, so I call you out for exaggerating, at the very least, whatever you think you know.
Funnily enough, I know many of the CBSO personally over many years, so one of us is clearly speaking simultaneously to different players, or are you really Ms Stenning herself perhaps in disguise?
PS In any case, read and digest all the other comments on this post which all seem to say the same as most of the CBSO, too concerned for their own jobs rather than be identified and blow the whistle for fear of punishments of the type Ms Stenning is suggesting today?
Yes it is if you can’t fill Symphony Hall for Wednesday night’s concert which includes one of the most popular symphonic works in the repertoire.
A very sad situation in Birmingham.
https://bmusic.co.uk/book/instance/1506536
Gus, I’m not sure that this programme (yes, New World Symphony, but also a UK premiere) would ordinarily have filled Symphony Hall on a Wednesday evening during my time at the CBSO (2013-21). Please, let’s keep things in proportion and do what we can to support this wonderful group of musicians rather than constantly doing them down!
Very much the over-powerful, intellectually-challenged DRH mentality. Remind me of her musical qualifications again?
ZERO
None.
I’ve often thought Donald Trump was the Champion of absolute garbage.
He has just lost that title to the CEO of a fine orchestra.
What next?
You’ve been wrong before, Al
The CBSO is still the great orchestra it has been for decades.
Unfortunately, the current management of the orchestra, by virtue of its misguided actions, has succeeded in offending its loyal audience by seemingly trying to woo a new audience which, I feel, doesn’t realise it is being wooed.
To me, this statement is almost trying to invite abuse, so that the subsequently abused can then scream abuse, thus enabling them to take the moral high ground.
This is all so so horrible and a symptom of how sour relations have become since the moment Emma arrived. It would never have needed to be said until recently and it’s a world away from the warm, friendly, family-like atmosphere which Stephen Maddock fostered between the players, subscribers, members and even people working in the office (many of whom we knew by name) over so many years. We used to feel like we were part of the team, going on tour with the orchestra and on the bus down to London for the Proms. Now it suddenly feels like we are the enemy, not even trusted to behave ourselves without a Code of Conduct. It is just terribly upsetting when we have given the orchestra so much of our time, money and love. Why is she being allowed to do this?
well, and bravely said!
Please God Ms Stenning is reading this and all the comments on this post! Or will she consider us all bullies in telling/exposing the reality and truth?!
Another babbling brook of bull***t. And people are PAID for these scribblings???
Ms Stenning has lost her remaining bit of credibility with this jumbled up nonsense.
Yes, what’s she’s peddling is an insult to drivel.
This is from a document that was circulated many months ago. I don’t understand why people wanting to welcome new people and asking people to be kind is causing such a fuss. If you feel attacked when asked to be kind, perhaps that’s a sign you NEED to change.
“I don’t understand why people wanting to welcome new people and asking people to be kind is causing such a fuss.”
Because only the mis-understanding would consider it even needed saying to a concert audience.
Have you ever worked front of house in a concert (or any other) venue?? Just like with any other venue, on occasion you get drunk people, rude people, agressive people, people who want to take drugs and possibly overdose in the toilets, homeless people who just want somewhere to be warm for 2 hours etc….
Quite right News Cycle. Oh the irony that the people complaining about having to be kind are the people who are taking part in this revolting witch hunt against the CBSO. I would laugh but it’s it’s just too awful. Shame on you all, some of the comments in this thread are absolutely disgusting.
It is not a witch hunt against the CBSO. It is a profound objection to the patronising attitude of their CEO and the implementation of the Stenning/Morris ‘Vision’ which is alienating significant numbers of a loyal audience.
Could it be the gentleman whom she abused for daring to tell the photographer to be quiet? I know he has sent her a clear message as to how he and many others feel. I met him at the CBSO last week, mentioning the slipped disc entry and he said it was him. He has been to literally thousands of CBSO concerts since the 60s and good for him for not taking this lying down. No doubt ‘she’ thinks his shushing the photographer was abuse rather than a service to fellow listeners. At the concert (very poorly attended, probably because it was French music apart form Stravinsky symphony in 3) one of her managers came on (not her…does she attend many concerts?) and said that mobile phones must not be used during the music and there was a loudish cheer and applause. I am restricting myself to just 2 CBSO concerts next season, lest she invents further madness.
God willing, Ms Stenning will be selling coffee in cups of the type she brazingly (& rudely towards the performers) brings into Symphony Hall by then…
I doubt that she has the skils to sell coffee, Bored Muso. She probably could not tell the difference between espresso and espressivo.
skills, I meant…
Your last sentence prompted me to comment.
My partner and I are long time CBSO members (at the moment) and have the option of booking tickets on priority. We used to book subscriptions for a large number of concerts each season.
After our own experience of CBSO’s rigid policy and inconsiderate service in the last year I concluded that it is not worth it, so we will not book subscriptions in future.
Like you, we will choose a couple of concerts and will do so just before the concert dates.
Come up to Liverpool if it’s not too far!
1. This is the epitome of TLDR. Who the hell is going to actually read through that insane nonsense?
2. Whoever wrote that screed needs to be immediately fired.
And this thread is the epitome of the Slipped Disc comments section. Please, PLEASE let’s stop this witch hunt, it’s catastrophically damaging for the orchestra; they are not the problem yet they are the ones who suffer. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the management, two wrongs don’t make a right. There is a great orchestra there trying its very hardest to carry on performing to a world class standard in the face of this. (NB Not meant directly for you Ben, just a general plea).
I totally agree, Music fan. I’ve been going through the 24/25 Season brochure and am getting ready to book, support the orchestra and I’m looking forward to another season of wonderful music making. As a Brummie I’m incredibly proud of the CBSO.
Thank you music fan, it is incredibly upsetting for all involved and so unnecessary. Please stop.
Look, it’s so simple, and applies across arts management ethos today:
As long as we are nice to you and you to us, dear artists, we call the shots. Even though we have but a fraction of your expertise or artistic nous, we are polishing and nurturing our flourishing ascendancy up the managerially ambitious greasy pole, so do not stand in our way, or your career will be over before it begins.
Kiss our butt and sycophantically nod in agreement, we know what’s good for m…you.
Even when we haven’t got a clue. Which is most of the time.
Confidence.
Trust us.
We are paid seven times your salary for a reason.
To bullshit you and everyone else into passive acceptance.
All will be well.
That dog whistle ‘nanny’ term again… #sigh.
“and we are also responsible for protecting our staff from abuse, hostility, and violence.”
So many of the great conductors circa 1900-1980 would be unwelcome then……
This is hilarious. It’s really about an arts organisation as a conduit, as a vessel and a trumpet for a whole load of other psychological stuff. I may be white, male, straight, meat eater, and middle class, but I wouldn’t be inside their minds for all the “cool” in the world.
From: Richard Stanbrook.
Date: 13th May 2024.
Not again! I’ll take this opportunity to list my intolerances:
(1) Wokery and Political correctness.
(2) The UK Conservative Party and its camp followers.
(3) So-called cultural advisors who would have trouble telling the difference between “Jerry Springer, The Opera” and Richard Strauss’ “Salome.”
(4) Government censorship by stealth.
(5) Mobile phones being activated during public performances.
(6). Artistic managers who adhere slavishly to the latest political diktat.
My examples could go on but I won’t weary the reader. The Arts must be open to everyone, irrespective of age, gender and ethnicity. If, for instance, a piece of music, a play or film gives offence, there’s always an “off” switch or exit door. The great conductor, Otto Klemperer, when giving an early performance of “Bartok’s “The Miraculous Mandarin” in pre-war Germany, angered the local Mayor, a certain Conrad Adenauer, reposted: “Please be offended!”
Perhaps the time has come for the CBSO to sack its management and find replacements who genuinely have admiration and respect for such a world-class orchestra.
Nice one Richard – well said. But there is some good news on the wokery/diversity front. I have heard that this excuse for a government that we have are about to terminate all the well-paid ‘diversity officers’ in all public organisations.
Is offensive or abusive behaviour a problem that needs to be addressed then?
Perhaps it is. On the other hand, I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, the real problem is that she doesn’t react well to criticism.
Indeed. This reads very much like “I’ve had far too many emails and phone calls about my policy of allowing photography and video-taking during concerts.”
Has she really just said I could be stopped from going to concerts because I keep emailing complaints about her ridiculous policies?
Michael asked, “Has she really just said I could be stopped from going to concerts because I keep emailing complaints about her ridiculous policies?”
The answer is yes. I detect a new syndrome that has been exhibited by Paula Venells, Liz Truss and Emma Stenning: the dogged, arrogant, monomaniacal adherence to dogma in the face of mounting evidence that that dogma is deeply flawed, and that people will suffer as a consequence.
Bombarding staff members (including Ms Stenning) with repeated unsolicited hostile emails is online harassment. The fact that you (and obviously others on this site) consider her policies ridiculous does not justify your behaving in this way. But I would suppose that the ‘extreme or continuous circumstances’ which would lead being barred from concerts would be of a more physical type.
She initiated a policy — this using cameras from phones — that is, at the very least, controversial. (It made it on to the extended, though not the short, version of Have I Got News for You this week, citing the Ian Bostridge incident — and the SD coverage!).
Surely patrons and others who were considering attending CBSO concerts are entitled to voice their responses to this initiative on email. Critically (NOT abusively), if that is their view, and it is the critics rather than the defenders who are most likely to out pen to paper, as it were.
No one correspondent can control the number of like-minded people who share and voice the view in the same medium.Each email only represents one person. So who is to be punished for uttering a viewpoint in what is nominally still a free society? The 500th respondent may think he is the first.
Conversely, I have no objection to the FIRST abusive respondent being denied access– as long as disagreement with a policy is not confused with abuse.
But as I said above, I scent a wounded warrior here. With a wounded ego.
Surely this is a terms & conditions for ticket buyers and anyone selling tickets online has to have one? Would you really want an organisation NOT to have the right to remove an audience member who was becoming disruptive or stalking orchestra members (or any number of other undesirable behaviours)??
Actually, on reflection as to the outcry on this post, is Nanny Stanning completely to blame over this travesty in Brum?
What about the incompetent morons who allowed this loose 1812 cannon to be appointed and put in charge of this once excellent management of the CBSO?
The interview and appointments board should be named and shamed an admit disaster before it gets any worst.
I’m afraid that Ms Stenning has painted herself into a corner. There is now no way for her to defuse this horrible situation without losing face.
The post reads, “We will always …[ask] the person in question to respect our staff, players and anyone working on our behalf, at all times”. How can she demand respect when her actions and attitudes show such extreme disrespect for audiences and musicians alike?
If only she’d been manager of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on May 29, 1913!
Why does she keep going on about “joy” in all of her wordy statements? Is she that musically illiterate? Mahler 9 = Joy. Dangerous and out of touch.
Her behaviour is crushing us in the orchestra. We try so hard and she couldn’t care less about our art.
Well said!
Bravely spoken out CBSO musician!
and so accurately true.
Please can you get other colleagues to speak out and register their dismay at this woman potentially ruining your/their reputation and possible lively hood before it’s too late?
Remember Paula Venables survived for far longer than she should have, and continued to deceive and dupe before she was found out..
By then, hundreds had suffered (some wrongful imprisonment) and God forbid (if there really IS a God?) she was being considered as Bishop of London!!!
(Which religious misfits thought of that ?!)
The only way to get this mad woman to consider standing down and going back to kindergarden teaching is to get as many colleagues from the band to collectively vote her out before it’s too late…
You do realise that one can call themselves anything on here….don’t believe everything you read!
Sorry everyone for being a cranky pants, I just had a little tantrum. I promise I will not speak on behalf of my colleagues in the orchestra who do not share my views.
Or am I even in the orchestra? I forget. Off for a bath now!
Clearly not in the orchestra
Oh yes I am
Or maybe you are and just fed up of the harmful drivel being spouted on here…. Hmmmm… enjoy your bath, a drop of lavender oil can help make you less Cranky
Sorry, I down voted your comment by mistake.
Like the LSO then. Our MD is crushing our band…
More disturbed than disturbing, but then ignoring or underestimating the breed has proved dangerous in the final run.
It seems that only actions are to be punished. Still no prohibition of think crime. Thus, there is room for improvement.
Why is this a surprise to anyone? This kind of language is pretty standard everywhere else, why not at CBSO?
Comments here seem to suggest there is no need for this sort of thing in the world of classical music, but it’s a world that has always been rife with abuse of all kinds.
I honestly do not know anything about the efforts of Ms Stenning to modernise the orchestra, but frankly something has to give because with arts funding probably at an all time low, and long term decline in audiences, CBSO are facing an existential threat, and trying to plod on as they have for the past decade is not an option. Some commenters here need to wake up, because the thing they love is dying, and they are not going to save it by resisting every little change.
But is “this kind of language pretty standard everywhere else?” My experience is that you generally only encounter “abuse will not be tolerated” signs/recorded messages in organisations which know they are likely to be promoting it. The postal sorting office, National Savings, HMRC. Strangely, people like Tesco, Waitrose and most theatres/concert halls I visit, don’t seem to need them.
Google “tesco staff abuse policy” and you will see not only that they have a policy, but that it contains the words “zero tolerance”.
Google “royal Albert hall staff abuse policy” and you will find the same, including the words “zero tolerance”.
I think you rather missed my point. I didn’t say that Tesco or the RAH didn’t, or indeed shouldn’t, have a staff abuse policy. But, unlike the examples to the contrary I quoted, they’ve never felt the need to articulate them to me, because for most civilised people, the notion that you don’t abuse staff is taken for granted. The only places I see these policies proudly proclaimed, are places where you, and they, know that the treatment of the customer is likely to provoke anger and upset.
Well, you asked a question of me, which I answered directly, but to your other point I would say the only reason you are having this policy “articulated to you” is that the author of this story is making a point of doing so as part of a targeted harassment campaign…
To reiterate my own point here, I don’t want to take away from people’s genuine complaints, but protesting every policy is pointless pedantry. Worse in fact, it undermines any real criticism. I would advise you don’t take the bait.
In other words, seems like she’s itching for a fight. These woke whiners are usually the instigators.
It’s the definition of abuse that’s so nutty. It’s “anything we don’t like.”
I notice that she puts the word staff before the word players on two occasions. Mmm, priorities not right, dear
Maybe it’s because the staff are the ones receiving this abuse, seemingly on a daily basis at the moment.
If the people creating this vitriol could spend a moment thinking about the musicians and how it is affecting them, they might think twice about commenting.
Well Said!!
[redacted] She seems deathly afraid to offend offenders. An awful wad of verbal cotton. If you want to set house rules, you have to sound like the boss. At least that’s my opinion, for what it’s worth, if you don’t mind, sorry I butted in.
Unfortunately some people just never mentally left school. This DEI hire is one of them…..
i am absolutely horrified by the bullying of women in particular on this site and ofEmma Stenning in particular . The huge irony is that the toxic posts on here prove that this perfectly acceptable CBSO request for respect at work for all is something that abusive people on this board is think is below them.
It is this kind of toxic behaviour that is driving people away from classical music. The one thing that classical music does is to reinforce the complexity and beauty of our mutual humanity. That such so-called fans of it create and perpetuate this hate and are allowed to on this site is appalling in every way. The industry in general is being crushed by multiple factors and this website’s bile is representative of all that is viewed as elitist and exclusive and toxic in classical music. I love classical music – that means I support with my very modest means and enthusiasm the orchestra and chamber ensembles that I love – EVEN WHEN and ESPECIALLY WHEN they DO THINGS I DO NOT ALWAYS LIKE in order to try things for the best reasons (eg- finding a new audience) . I am sure that what CBSO is trying to do is secure its future in the most difficult times ever in recent history for classical music. Those of us who are having problems with change need to think about whether we have the right to destroy these people and by extension their organisations because we aren’t getting our own way all the time.
It is very easy to see the CEO as the victim here, when that is not the case at all, if you have followed the events of the last few months. Though some comments here have been unhelpfully unpleasant – most have been completely justified. Criticism of management is not bullying. That is absurd. Only in the last few hours, we CBSO supporters have received an email in which the whole malarkey re mobile phones has been repeated – and it is still ambiguous, whilst claiming to be clear. But it is not just that – the experimental concert back in Autumn upset many people, and while the next one (Pictures at an Exhibition concert) was not interfered with, the “CBSO Explores” season replaces concerts with great music. I am sorry, but you will not see “Rap” concerts at the Berlin or Vienna Phil. This begs the whole question of what is “great” music, and doubtless there will be a barrage of answers telling me that “Rap” is just as great as Beethoven. Well, it isn’t. It is interesting that this time last year, when I booked for the entire season (priority booking) – I spent nearly £900 on tickets. This time, when I go to book, I am only spending £650 on fewer concerts – and that is with increased ticket prices too. What does this tell us? I also wonder how many of these people commenting here are actually pumping money into the CBSO – as I and others on this site are – because we believe in this great orchestra. We are not simply walking away whingeing.
Yeah, when I ask young people why they don’t like classical music they say “All of Norman Lebrecht’s bullying.”
Bullying. How dishonest.
Stick to enjoying the music then and don’t get involved in the politics. Unfortunately it’s the musicians who have to deal with this DEI hire.
There is one person who needs psychological analysis. It is unfortunately you Norman.
You have whipped up a frenzy on this issue are a partially to blame for the abuse, personal attacks, excessive complaints, harassment and constant stream of demands this organisation is having to face. You need to accept that you are partially the reason this statement needs to be made by the CBSO.
If anyone has issue with a policy on kindness and not abusing staff/musicians, they should look at why that is.
Anyone involved with this personal and disgraceful mudslinging should be ashamed.
So criticism = abuse now, eh?
Have you actually read through the comments invited by NL’s opening sentence: “screed of verbiage … need a psychoanalyst to explain … such nanny talk”?
What about these: “barking mad” “musically illiterate” “dangerous and out of touch” “woke whiner” “this mad woman … going back to kindergarden [sic] teaching …”?
In 2024, yes.
Is that you, Emma….?
Please don’t pass any blame on Norman on here or anywhere else.
Thank God he has a forum where such alarming out of control bad management where the international reputation of a class band is at stake can be aired and discussed freely.
Slipped Disc is, as many on here who read and contribute to it, the only fair and transparent way to report the horrors of what is happening in the musical world.
Long may it continue without these sort of comments designed to sympathise with someone whose silly unthought of actions need to kicked into touch and made to fall on her sword, and like the buffoons who appointed Ms Stenning, resign in shame.
Long live uncle Norm and may he continue to do stirling work reporting on Slipped Disc!
How on earth are these people ever employed to such positions? On the basis that they will alienate the maximum number of customers?
Boxes need to be ticked.
Stenning and brave!
Woke nutjobs have got to go. They’re ruining everything.
I love this new definition of “abuse.” It’s anything we don’t like.
Be grateful that we’ve had no trigger warnings…yet. How would the sensitive cope with Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony’ or Bartok’s ‘Miraculous Mandarin’, not to mention Harrison Birtwistle’s ‘Panic’?
DEI hire. Doesn’t belong in that job at all.
Good grief!
What a shame someone has seen fit to publish such stuff. Having attended SH for the whole of the current century I have never ever encountered any issues on stage, in the auditorium, in the foyer, or anywhere in the building. If there is a problem…..fix it. If not, don’t create one!
Was there a ‘Code of Conduct’ under Stephen Maddock? Surprised if there was for I don’t know of any members of the CBSO or admin staff who have been bullied or harassed.