IT CAN'T ALL BE MAKE BELIEVE STORY TIME

So, I didn’t write anything for several days. I didn’t feel like it. I still don’t. I finished my twenty-first season at the Baltimore Symphony with a chamber music concert Saturday night I was really excited about. It was packed, the audience was enthusiastic, there were some wonderful moments of connection, and my performance was professional and acceptable except for one large and very stupid blunder. Then, I didn’t feel like doing much. Twenty-one seasons is a lot. Now I have a month off.

I have a lot to do, and most of it doesn’t have a thing to do with the actual practicing of the oboe (which I will do, too, but haven’t since that concert.) I did touch an oboe today because someone wanted to take a photo of me with one. I would’ve played it except I didn’t soak my reed. I did feel a significant gravitational pull to play the thing. But the oboe’s now been sitting on the couch for six hours, and I’m just going to put it away and have a drink mixed by Mr. Needleman instead.

I got some bloodwork done I’ve been putting off because it makes me anxious, and it was all fine. In fact, as a bonus, I was told my liver enzymes are so good I should drink more. Score. I got a mammogram and that was all good. Now, I am ready to tackle the scariest thing of all: my hearing test.

I’ve exercised with my Peloton instructor, Camila. Love her. I tried some new workouts which are intervals/HIIT mixed with arm weights, which sounded kind of stupid to me, but I actually almost like. I say that because I don’t like to exercise but feel like hell if I don’t.

I’ve worked on 501(c)(3) paperwork I’ve been putting off, and wow, do I suck at paperwork.

I’ve watched a lot of Young Sheldon snuggled up on a small couch with my son.

I took the train to DC with my daughter yesterday. We had a delicious lunch and saw three museums, culminating with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum which I had to leave about half way through.

The visit to the museum started with an elevator ride to the fourth floor. We were packed in there with several people speaking Mandarin and three young white men who looked like brothers with their mother. Two of the three brothers were wearing tie-dyed shirts with photos of Donald Trump and “Miss Me Yet?” on them. The other brother was right next to me and smelled so badly of B.O. that if he were my own son, I would force him into a shower right away. We were shut into the elevator by a museum worker who told us this was heavy subject matter and about the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, and that we would see a movie on the way up to the fourth floor. He bade us all to be respectful which raised my hackles. The Mandarin speakers were talking over the movie. The Trumpers shushed them and I was grateful, but that boy sure did smell terrible. A couple hours in, I ended up leaving in a hurry. It was a train car you had to walk through in order to continue in the exhibit that did it. I took some photos of quotes which I found especially powerful, and praised My Deities that the shoes were missing from the shoe exhibit for cleaning or something, but then there was a hair exhibit. I skipped the bathroom and was never happier to be in the 95° sun of the DC Mall.

And over these last few days of not writing, three troubling things have come into my inbox. They are nothing new, as in the characters are new to me, but the stories are not. But they all end with, “What is your advice, Katherine?” And “what do you think I should tell this person to do?” And “please don’t let anyone know I told you this. Please don’t ever out me.”

But I don’t have any good advice and I just feel like running out of the museum again.

I’m not an investigative reporter. I’m not a policeperson. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a judge. I’m not a Big Fancy Man with tons of influence and people fawning all over me. I don’t operate a fancy non-profit with millions of dollars in its endowment and so much potential to do good. I don’t have a sponsorship from Rolex, my own perfume, or people who want to take pictures of me with makeup on.

All I have is a fucking rage that this shit is still happening in August, 2024. And my rage is especially hot because I believe that good musicians know better. And so, if they know better, but choose to abuse their power anyway, it’s the intention which really ignites my rage. They could be using their significant achievements for good, or at least, just playing pretty, but they choose to abuse instead.

Here’s what I got, tamed down so I don’t get any of these guys sending me letters and data preservation requests from lawyers:

ONE PIECE OF SHIT BIG FANCY MAN

This BFM, despite being in countless woman-free or nearly-women free photos over the years, just really came onto my radar recently when I was sent screenshots of him getting called out for participating in yet another woman-free event. It was his clap-back to the comment that really set me on edge.

Then, I got a message telling me, in the wake of a nice, fancy thing happening to this BFM with all the other BFM fawning all over him, that I should know that the BFM had had a relationship with and slept with a much younger woman student who was subbing in a {REDACTED} orchestra. (Of course, this BFM has a wife, but literally, these BFM could not care less.) When a friend of this woman supported her in reporting the BFM, the friend was forced out of the {REDACTED} orchestra because he plays the same instrument as the BFM, an all-powerful Deity. And the BFM did all kinds of bad things to the friend, making him fearful for his career before it’s even really started yet.

I’m not a lawyer, a judge, and I don’t operate a polygraph machine. Maybe the person telling me this is completely full of shit. They didn’t strike me that way, but let’s just assume it’s a Make Believe Story for now as I describe the other two messages.

ANOTHER PIECE OF SHIT BIG FANCY MAN WITH A WIFE WHO SUPPORTS HIM

In a completely other instrument family, I’m told there is a BFM and his wife who participate in extreme verbal and psychological abuse of students, sexually harass students, and that these students have also witnessed child abuse. I’m told that the BFM and his wife call other teachers to denigrate the abused students, to traumatize them, and to prevent them from accessing other help to move up in the profession.

The two men I’ve described so far are to me, as an orchestral player, household names. Very fancy.

Can we assume if the first story I told is completely 100% false, that this one is too? Okay, let’s do it. How about this next one, then?

ANOTHER PIECE OF SHIT TEACHER AND AN INSTITUTION WHICH COMPLETELY ENABLES HIM

I received a report of a professor at {REDACTED}. That’s one of my favorite music schools because I applied for a position there, prepared a tremendous amount of paperwork, and was summarily rejected without even a “thank you but no thank you for your application,” something I only learned when they announced their hire. That’s all fine and good, until I was approached about it on the subway in New York by someone I’d never spoken to before. “Hey, I heard you applied for the {REDACTED} position and didn’t even get an interview,” he said to me. (What do you say to that? “Uh, yeah,” I mustered.) So, my opinion of that hiring committee with their big mouths was pretty low already, that I was noteworthy enough to gossip about but not to send a “thank you but no thank you” email to. Actually, my opinion of the whole institution was pretty low, but it went way lower when I learned this:

There’s a teacher there who has allegedly been engaging in inappropriate and sexually provocative conversations with students currently enrolled and recently graduated. There are allegedly records of him grooming and attempting to groom students in the school, including a current student. He has sent messages to the effect of, “Your hair is so long and beautiful, I would like you to sit on my lap naked and let me brush it,” and “You just got out of the shower, so….FaceTime?” He allegedly invited two young female students to a “hot tub party” at his apartment. He allegedly invited multiple students to visit him in a large city, offering financial incentives to do so. I was offered screenshots and names. I was told the current student who has been targeted is extremely fearful of retaliation for reporting. I’m told someone made reports on her behalf but the school has done nothing but to protect the teacher. Furthermore, institutional efforts have allegedly been made to discredit reporters who sent evidence. The teacher has allegedly retaliated against the students who have reported him. The student who wrote me feels “stuck since the administrators have basically turned a blind eye even though all evidence has been turned in.”

And the student wanted help and advice. And I want to tell you all, this is why we see so few women in brass.

Do you think this random student is just writing me this, a Make Believe Story, when they too could be watching Young Sheldon instead? How about those other two people who wrote me about the BFMs?

They can’t all be making it all up. But I have no great help or advice for them. All I can say is, keep reporting, and keep written records of it. If institutions refuse to provide you written responses (and they will try like hell to keep things out of writing), ask to record the conversations you have with them about it. Contact police where it is reasonable. Contact your local press. Contact investigative reporters who have written well about classical music already. Remember that HR personnel are there to protect the institution, not you. Be wary of Title IX offices as well. They have failed music students terribly historically. Write your friends contemporaneous emails about these things so there is a permanent record, even if you are too scared to go anywhere “official” right away. Look out for your friends and colleagues. Tell them in private that you can be a witness for them.

But here’s my advice for all you BFM enablers, who make me sicker to my stomach than the Trumpy B.O. Boy:

1. Believe reporting students as a default position. Even if you don’t believe them, don’t attempt to discredit them. You only discredit yourself and your institution.

2. Do you even have an inkling that one of these people might be your friend, colleague, your “The Man,” or your “The Best of the Best?” Find someone else to work when you have the discretion outside of your orchestra/university job. These are not people to be playing chamber music with, sitting on juries with, inviting for masterclasses, or fawning over. Do these things you have inklings of not matter to you because your BFM plays so very well? I guarantee you there are others who play the instrument very well.

3. Watch these BFM on social media. If you see them only finding Men’s Work worthy of lauding, watch even more closely. If you see them only playing discretionary concerts with other men, count the red flags.

4. If you know anything, report it. Don’t think about busses and how you don’t want to throw anyone under them. Women and students are not busses.

5. Who do you call out as “the best in the world,” “a legend,” and all of that? You don’t need to keep doing it publicly about the BFMs. They are really totally fine already and don’t need your help, unless this is your way of trying to get gigs. Take a couple years off lauding your BFMs publicly and see what might surface during that time, especially if they are the sort to only choose to associate professionally with other men and the women they sleep with.