TAKE THE SHIT OUT OF THE SHOW
yeterday's shitshow was in New York, today's is in New Zealand
Yesterday, or today, depending how you look at the International Date Line, The Post (New Zealand) published “Bombshell details into former NZSO boss investigation revealed.” It’s about a $140,000 eleven-month investigation *funded by taxpayers* into their CEO’s alleged misconduct.
My last post was a guest post by Kate Rendall, a former New Zealand oboe student who alleges she was raped by her former teacher and former member of that same orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony, Stephen Popperwell, while the orchestra was on tour to play the Proms in London. That was also funded by taxpayers, with the NZSO being New Zealand’s largest cultural institution and ambassador.
This article mentions nothing of Kate, any investigations about Kate, or any steps the orchestra has taken to address sexual misconduct of their members. It also doesn’t mention how terribly Kate has been treated by the orchestra. For the NZSO and New Zealand press, Kate simply doesn’t exist.
Instead, we read a story with a somewhat complex set of characters based upon a report by an investigator commissioned by the NZSO. So while the investigator found no official wrong doing by the NZSO’s CEO, I never trust these reports. The report does raise questions for me about the continued drinking culture and inappropriate and unhelpful “inside access” for donors in our industry.
I mean, the CEO, Peter Biggs, doesn’t sound totally clean. He billed the orchestra for housing at a fancy club saying his own place wasn’t habitable when he had actually just rented it out. He admitted to “grevious errors of judgment” when he quit back in July. But he does make a good point when he says, “At every turn the board has fudged, dodged and redacted. We should expect more accountability from board members appointed as stewards of a Crown entity, and I worry for the future of this prized cultural asset in the hands of individuals responsible for this debacle.”
So after Biggs resigned in July, the acting CEO, Kirsten Mason, took over, and now she too has resigned. It’s one giant shitshow.
But I knew that back in June, when Kate Rendall revealed that the NZSO called her and a reporter “nuts” over asking for reforms to their sexual harassment policies and an investigation into her case. Or I knew it back in October, 2023, when Kate revealed that musicians of the orchestra were told to stay out of contact with her. Because, of course, if a woman alleges that she was raped by someone in your institution, you should cut off everyone’s contact with her because she’s evil.
NZSO—and New York Philharmonic and Local 802 and all these other depraved organizations—need to release all their reports. Make your shit public, especially if you are an organization which receives public funding or musicians’ hard-earned money. It’s the only way to take the shit out of the show.
The comment about me being “nuts” was made by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s (now former) PR guy. It was the intended subtext of a message he sent to the editor of The Post.
The NZSO has asked me to consider “informing my community of supporters” of a correction. - When they provided me with a copy of the messages, they wrote a note, in a list of attached documents, saying that personal comments “are regrettable and not supported by the NZSO”. I didn’t read the list of attachments properly and missed that note. I apologise.
Later NZSO actually apologised to me for the “nuts” comment. It was a pretty decent apology. They also wrote to their players and employees expressing the executive leadership team’s shock at their PR guy calling me nuts.
I’m not sure why they were shocked.
Months earlier I had pointed out how he described another woman as “vile”. Moving from characterising one woman as vile to another as nuts doesn’t seem like a shocking leap to me.
More generally, a well known tactic used to discredit women who talk about sexual harm is to attack their mental health and/or sexual history. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘nuts and sluts defence’. So, when a middle aged PR dude decided to portray me as “nuts” to the media, I’m not sure why the organisation paying him to speak on its behalf was shocked.
Agreed 102%