DEAR JOHN KERNALLY/JOHN CONNOLLY
I'm happy to go get that psych eval
Dear John Kernally/John Connolly,
I do not share your view that gender disparity in classical music is changing rapidly. I feel more urgency than you do, as well as more disgust with celebrations of the status quo which excludes women than you do, as evidenced by the fact that one of your most recent posts on your public Instagram objectifies women in this way:
You share a photo of yourself as a young boy, “age eight, painting jumbo breasts (emoji, emoji) very seriously.” I do the very offensive thing, however, of “developing a personal brand in doing what {I do} online.” I do the very offensive thing of noting when women are absent or mistreated. I, of course, am “foul and that’s all there is to say about it really.”
Despite all your sharing of your own playing on my page last night, I won’t comment on it. Your playing is irrelevant to your online behavior. And I will give you this, so that you can rest easily and comfortably, my dear man: I am the world’s worst oboe player, and I come from the world’s worst school of oboe playing, and I have no one who follows me for my oboe playing. Now that we are past all of that, and you have won this “battle” which I find completely irrelevant, I would like to move onto the end of your comment.
I would like you to “lay your absolute everything on the fact that {I would have} diagnosable cluster B personality traits if {I were} properly assessed.”
Here is my proposal: I have a fund. It’s named after me. It’s called the Katherine Needleman Fund for Music. You probably love that name because you think it is evidence that I have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. You probably think that’s why I share photos of myself drinking beverages as well. Anyway, I didn’t want to name the fund that, but rather something very generic. However, a trusted woman advisor advised me to name it that for the very reason that it made me uncomfortable. This fund commissions under-represented composers to write works for our instrument, and other instruments which need new works as well. This fund bought a new oboe last month for an extremely gifted student who couldn’t afford it. This fund has provided education for young women oboists in the “pipeline” which men claim is the reason they don’t exist in places such as the Berlin Philharmonic. I would like your “absolute everything” in my fund.
Let us mutually agree on a Baltimore psychiatrist to evaluate me for Cluster B personality disorders. I would suggest someone from Johns Hopkins University or the University of Maryland, both two world-class medical schools in town here. I will offer up front to release the full results of this professional psychiatrist’s evaluation of my potential for Cluster B Personality Disorders on my social media. If you’re right, and I have one, you keep your everything, and you can rest easy knowing that you have exposed to the world to the fact that I am “crazy.”
Because that’s really the problem here, isn’t it? That you need to put me down as a bad oboe player, or say that I have a diagnosable psychiatric illness to denigrate what I say.
Now, I don’t denigrate people with psychiatric illnesses. They’ve torn a good portion of my family apart actually, so it’s not something I would throw around, like, as an insult, or to explain someone being an asshole. But I’ll tell you this: if I don’t have a Cluster B Personality Disorder, you can send me 80% of your “absolute everything” for the Katherine Needleman Fund for Music and I will do some good things with it. I think you should keep 20% of your net worth.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have those things. What I do have is an unwillingness to accept the status quo. I have also rejected the need I feel to behave in the way I have been trained from birth is acceptable for women. This is why you think I’m “foul” and “diagnosable.”
Let’s have a lawyer draw up a contract. I have a good one. You can provide your own and they can work it out. We’ll split the cost of the doctor. I’m ready for an actual psychiatric evaluation, not just from some guy on the internet who is ready to make a diagnosis with misogyny as his only qualification.
And then I’m ready to do good shit with your dirty money.
Sincerely,
Katherine Needleman
P.S. You can write me on Instagram, here on Substack, through my website, or at queenoffilthdigest at gmail dot com. Yep, I’ve blocked you on Facebook. I’d be happy to unblock you but my Facebook is not a place for you to share videos of your playing. Looking forward to drawing up a contract with you and serving people in need with your money.
The following is what led to John Kernally/John Connolly leaving the above comment this morning. I should note that it appears that someone with the name “John Connolly” was also President of the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra for some time, where a man of the same name has played oboe, English horn, and harp.
Yesterday, I shared the following on my Facebook:
along with the following text in the comments:
This guy also seems to be known as "John Connolly" and is an oboist and harpist who has played with the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra.
I also indicated in the comments of that post that the above “exhausting and painful person” comment was a
Comment by https://www.instagram.com/kernslife on this Insta post:
where I wrote in response to the Berlin Philharmonic's celebration of men oboists, "Beautiful playing all around. But I have to wonder if any women oboists were ever given a reasonable chance to play oboe solos with this orchestra. Were your auditions all blind? Were women allowed to audition? How many women have ever been rostered in the Berlin Philharmonic's oboe section in its 143-year history? (guessing zero)"
Mr. Kernally/Connolly had appeared once before on my Facebook back in November 2024, with this comment, that “America has the worst oboe style/school in the world”:
Mr. Kernally/Connolly wrote a lot of comments on my post yesterday, including sharing four videos of his own musical performances. I wanted to go to bed and not wake up to a bunch more videos. I asked him to respond to my question about why my or his playing was important to this discussion about missing women with one comment only. When he continued to share videos of his playing and asked me to share one directly to my page ro promote his work, I blocked him last night before bed. I hate to block people because then their comments no longer appear on my page, but I’ve saved the whole comment stream which you can read at the end of this post if you want to see.
But it was this comment on his Instagram this morning that inspired me to write that open letter to Mr. Kernally/Connolly:
This was the entire comment stream from this post at the time I blocked John Kernally. Unfortunately, it currently no longer shows John Kernally’s comments because I blocked him.
I would rather hear the "but wait ... I don't think *my* behavior has ever been " statement from someone at least beginning to understand their privilege than any of the approaches John Connolly has taken here:
- this is an opportunity for me to promote myself
- try to degrade accomplishments by attacking them
- make up sideways arguments that aren't on point
- don't answer direct questions
- tone policing
etc.
I have no doubt as to which of Katherine and John Connolly has more diagnosable behavioral problems.
Katherine - it would be interesting if you reframed your challenge as "I'm willing to get diagnosed by a repetuable behiavor specialist if you will do the same."
Generally I prefer to think of people as uninformed about their privilege, which is often invisible to people who have it. This helps me be more empathetic/compassionate towards them. But there are some folks I will always struggle to respect / empathasize with and I think you've just surfaced one such person to me.
He thinks in hierarchy.
I see his thoughts as:
“Professional musicians are entitled to more opinions than amateur musicians”
“Better professional musicians have better opinions.”
“Some people have better observations than others. My observations are better than yours”
“Men are have better opinions than irrational women.”
This mindset is steeped in everything he states.