On February 28, the faculty senate of the Cleveland Institute of Music voted overwhelmingly in favor of a motion of no-confidence in its president, Paul Hogle, and provost, Scott Harrison, citing reputational damage to the school, underqualified leadership, the institution’s growing deficit, and concerns about loss of accreditation, among other grievances. According to a letter […]
Category: Breaking
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New Lawsuit Raises Allegations of Sexual Abuse at San Francisco Conservatory of Music
When violinist Lara Michaels auditioned for a place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), most of the faculty members remained quiet, taking notes on her playing from behind a table. Axel Strauss, a professor of violin and chamber music, was the exception. “He stood up, he came around the table towards me,” Michaels […]
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The Rest Is Silliness
“And they’re off! It’s very exciting—the beginning of a symphony is always very exciting. I can’t tell if it’s slow or fast yet because they keep . . . stopping.” It’s 1997, I’m six years old, and my family has just pulled into the driveway of our home. The local public radio station is playing […]
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Messing with the Fantasy
On Saturday, January 6, a group of activists taking part in the global Shut It Down for Palestine movement marched through a wintery mix of sleet and rain from midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park to Lincoln Center, blocking the main entrance to David Geffen Hall just as concertgoers began to arrive for that evening’s performance by […]
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“Classical Music Is Not the Easiest Thing at This Time”
“Since the war started, this is the first time I’m talking about my experience and about how I feel,” says Lia Perlov, the principal cellist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO), at the beginning of our Zoom call on Tuesday. “I don’t even talk about this with my partner or my parents. Because it’s too […]
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Queer, Dangerous, Exciting
James Jorden, who died earlier this week at 69, is almost certainly one of the most influential people in my life who I never met. In 1994, frustrated with his own floundering career as a stage director, and by the sorry state of both opera writing (overly academic guff or reformatted press releases) and opera […]
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The Politics of D Major
Like a panel of elementary-school teachers, music critics weren’t mad—just disappointed yesterday. That was when the Staatsoper Unter den Linden announced that conductor Christian Thielemann would replace Daniel Barenboim as music director starting with the 2024-25 season. Stern and badly-spelled I expected better of yous rang out across the land, directed at the city’s center-right […]
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Did John Eliot Gardiner Punch a Singer?
Update The week after this article was published, a spokesperson for John Eliot Gardiner announced that he had taken the decision to withdraw from all engagements until next year. Gardiner will be “focussing on his mental health while engaging in a course of counselling,” they said.“I am taking a step back in order to get […]
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Predatory Environments
Robert Beaser has been fired from his position on the Juilliard School’s composition faculty after an investigation by the law firm Potter & Murdock found Beaser had “interfered with individuals’ academic work,” engaged in “an unreported relationship” in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and “repeatedly misrepresented facts about his actions.” The school announced this […]
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Nonsense
I don’t know what’s more unforgivable: that conductor and long-serving Bard president Leon Botstein accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein, or that he put me in the position of agreeing with American conservative outrage-monger Dinesh D’Souza. “He is ideologically unpredictable, even eccentric,” D’Souza was quoted as saying of Botstein in a 1992 New York Times profile […]