Cellist faces 7 years jail for NY climate protest
NewsThe founder of Chicago Baroque Ensemble John Mark Rozendaal was arrested yesterday while playing his cello in a stop-oil protest outside Citibank headquarters in New York.
Rozendaal, 63, was the subject of a restraining order, preventing him from approaching Citibank security. Citi called the cops and had the cellist arrested. If convicted, he faces up to seven years behind bars.
He wrote: ‘You’ve heard of musicians selling their souls to the devil? So here I am practicing and literally thinking, “If I can play this music tomorrow and not fuck it up, they can lock me up, I do not care how long.’
Rozendaal has been principal cellist of The City Musick and Basically Bach. He has performed with many period ensembles, including the Newberry Consort, Orpheus Band, King’s Noyse, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, and Soli Deo Gloria’s Chicago Bach Project.
Literall a typical case of “Fuck around and find out”
I hope he will get his wish.
I see that many finally understand that climate change is a serious issue though they may be against such protests – more climate change has indeed brought less climate change denial!
I could not care less if he played a strad cello with the Berlin Philharmonic or a nose flute in his bathroom. He is an idiot who deserves his fate
Bringing the deepest expression of our humanity to the door of a bank that is financing the destruction of humanity. Bravo!
John wrote a very thoughtful column for Early Music American magazine a few months ago, about the need to all do our parts in the face of a heating planet. See: https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/emag-feature/97127/
Sure can talk big. The slammer might hold a few surprises for an early music cellist though.
“You’ve heard of musicians selling their souls to the devil?”
Yes. Him for a start.
BTW: he’s based in Chicago. How did he get to NY? Don’t tell me that he rode a bicycle. And even that is not entirely carbon free, since there was energy used to extract the metal and to make the bicycle.
What a hypocrite.
He is not based in Chicago.
No longer in Chicago, playa. He is in New York area. A good fellow.
Very sad. His net contribution to the welfare of mankind would be so much greater from outside prison than from within.
Actually, by rotting in prison is doing all humanity a favor.
Unless he has multiple previous cases of this, I predict some sort of non-incarceration plea deal.
The prosecutors won’t want to go to a jury trial on this (“He played a cello in front of a bank!”) so some offer he can’t refuse will be made.
According to the article there is a restraining order. So, there is a previous history, and some court already made “some offer he can’t refuse” and gave him a chance to reflect on his actions outside of jail. And courts don’t look kindly at repeat offenders who blatantly violate restraining orders…
He does not face jail time for a climate protest, but for violating a restraining order. Entirely different story…
Far better to violate a restraining order by playing Bach’s solo cello suites than to “protest” by defacing great works of art, as others have done. He might be sentenced to jail (or home confinement, perhaps), but not for multiple years, I expect.
How do you know? Did you hear the performance? He may very well have defaced a great work of art.
Whatever the merits of his opinions, he is not facing the music (as one might say) for protesting against the use of oil. He was in breach of a court order restraining him from being on or close to Citibank’s property.
Do we know whether he has a motor vehicle of his own? Does he use taxis or buses to carry his cello around? How does this ensemble travel from place to place when they are on tour? More specifically, did he participate in the ensemble’s appearance at the Boston Early Music Festival and, if so, how did he and his cello make the almost 2,000 mile round trip?
I don’t wish to denigrate his cause in principle. But if we just stopped using oil tomorrow, we would be causing infinitely more harm to billions of people within days than going on using it for years. Nevertheless, in the long term, using oil products as fuel is undoubtedly harmful, not only through climate change from the emission of multiple greenhouse gases but also because petrol and diesel vehicles cause further air pollution through the release of harmful particles from their brake linings and tyres, not to mention the poisonous non-greenhouse gas carbon monoxide. And then there’s the massive pollution from oil refineries and the cracking process.
It’s a dilemma then, which can only be resolved through a timed retreat from using oil while advancing other options. That’s exactly what we are now doing. The production and ownership of electric vehicles is increasing steeply year on year, and alternative energy sources are being developed.
In the meantime, as long as Citibank is operating legally, he and his JSO colleagues have no right to disrupt or intimidate their business or personnel. For my part, I applaud his cause but not his methods.
If he still insists on protesting, why doesn’t he do so in the most polluting country in the world: China. I doubt that there would be any restraining orders or plea deals there; he would probably be incarcerated until completing a solo cello performance of the full version of John Cage’s ‘As Slow as Possible’ .
63 years old and still acting like a petulant child. Goodbye John.
how can we help the guy ?
I agree with zero of climate change protest (because it’s simply not factual, but rather manipulation of scientific data), but, like Voltaire, I would always defend his right to protest, no matter what.
You’re absolutely right! Anthropogenic climate change is fabricated because a random person on a fifth-rate tabloid blog said so, and the scientific consensus is worthless
For those unaware, there is no scientific consensus about climate change, far from it (although mainstream media and some well-paid scientists try to pass this wishful thinking “as” a fact), and, yes, if well researched (that is, prefer books and/or reviews of critical scientist, there is a plethora, while they’re still allowed to speak), it’ll come up that, oh, climate change has many other factors, being the anthropogenic one of very small or no amount at all. I myself was a “climate change believer” (though not a zealot), till I searched a lot more, then real and brutal facts started to pop up. Let the same invitation be offered here, even if here being not the best way, as this channel was intended for music matters only.
Ooh, the real and brutal facts as found on Breitbart News! The oil companies’ PR departments must be killing it. What can I say to a person who’s pretending to be asleep!
He will miss his cello in prison. He poked the bear a time too many.