Charity Cases

Eastman has one.

This is the first of a series of posts detailing My First Year at Eastman.

It’s been over a week since I shared my Open Letter to the Eastman School of Music.

It’s been over two weeks since I shared the original story about harassment, retaliation, and Eastman’s protecting its faculty far more than it protected me during my first year as one of very few women admitted to the doctoral program in orchestral conducting in the school’s history.

Together those posts have nearly 15,000 views, and I know many people have reached out to the school to ask for changes. I’ve heard a lot of troubling and heartbreaking stories after sharing mine.

Eastman has offered no response. Not a word.

Its administration has said nothing. Its faculty, with a few exceptions, have said nothing.

So it’s time to start sharing details and names, which I declined to do in the original story.

Keep in mind that I’ve wasted nine months attempting to get some action on this situation while being civil, reasonable, not giving up anybody’s privacy. Remember that the next time you hear someone complain about women using scorched-earth tactics in these conversations.

A few details at a time, for now.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Eastman was willing to sacrifice my opportunity, time, attention, personal comfort, and the first year of my degree. For what?

For a Director of Orchestras who shouts at women in his orchestra with such hostility that an entire rehearsal breaks down - and says he got “a slap on the wrist” for it.

A Director of Orchestras who screams that bowings by the Rochester Philharmonic’s first female concertmaster are “bullshit” in a room full of students.

A Director of Orchestras who makes students cry as they leave the audition room and shake behind the audition screen.

A Director of Orchestras who tells me that their auditions are “fucking painful” because professors who want diversity in their studios are “bringing in all these charity cases.”

Once again, a little bit louder: Eastman’s Director of Orchestras complains that diversity efforts are bringing in “charity cases” while auditioning students in the first week of the school year.

(And let me emphasize the fact that, for months, I have been lectured by Eastman’s leadership - to the point of it being frankly bizarre - on the fact that he is Our Director of Orchestras.)

I was proctoring auditions, and it was literally my first day at Eastman. I was so stunned by the blatantly racist comment - and by what an ***hole he was toward auditioning students - I didn’t know what to do. I’m still ashamed of the fact that I didn’t confront it in the moment.

But let’s get something straight. Nobody should make you shake or cry behind an audition screen - certainly not a jerk who’s bad at his job.

And students of color (and that’s absolutely what he meant by “diversity”) are not charity cases.

No, Eastman’s biggest charity case is Neil Varon.

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Next post: Impregnated at Eastman