The Eastman Files
Everything I've Got.* In One Post.
This is the fourth in a series of posts detailing my first year at Eastman as a DMA student in orchestral conducting.
I did not intend to be doing live, on-the-ground reporting on misogyny at Eastman here. What I really wanted to do was to offer some thoughts on big picture stuff and what to do about it. I wanted to talk about things like Equal Opportunity Jerks (there’s no such thing), the Good Guys who think you should Believe Women (except the one who reported them), and, you know… maybe music.
I am tired of Eastman’s idiocy taking up space on my platform, and it’s draining to write. But I also think all of this needs to be seen. So let’s rip off the band-aid.
I’m not putting in the effort on great writing or tight storytelling or breaking it into manageable pieces, and it is long. But let’s just finish it. You’re an adult. You can read at your leisure.
Then I can move on to talking about more important things that I actually enjoy writing about. Plus, if anybody from Eastman wants to sue me, maybe they can get a group discount on an attorney.
*This is everything I’ve got… firsthand. Many, many stories have been shared since I first shared mine. Please read stories from Olivia Galante, Mandy Mac, Adam DeSchriver, Ann Walton, and others. Katherine Needleman’s Facebook profile captures almost everything. She’s way more of a pro at this than I am.
I do have serious questions about whether or not the internet is the right place to share all these stories. It leaves us all exposed in so many ways. We should be able to share these stories in a confidential space and get immediate support and protection.
What I think my story shows is that such a space simply does not exist. And what I - and now others - have said over and over again - with Eastman putting its fingers in its ears - is that the lack of that space is profoundly harmful.
I also hope it shows that the absence of women in Eastman’s conducting program - which contributes very directly to the absence of women in the field, given the school’s prestige and resources - is not accidental at all.
You’re caught up with this, and this, and this, right? Okay - here’s the rest:
After the long list of behavior problems I reported with Neil - in the meeting that John Hain very much does not want me to talk about - I asked that Neil leave the room when I conduct. That’s it. That was my request. It cost nobody any time or money. I didn’t ask for an apology. I didn’t ask for him to be disciplined. I declined to make a formal report. I wasn’t trying to change the world.
The answer was no. Apparently, I can’t tell you why the answer was no, because John Hain is pretty aggressive and might sue me. But it was a transparently nonsense reason.
I asked that there be some very simple, very flexible standards put in place around repertoire. As things stand, Neil hands out conducting assignments as he likes, no questions asked.
It was clear to me that Neil is sexist - and that has become much clearer as more stories have come in - and that it affected how he made assignments. And an easy place for him to retaliate would be in my opportunities and repertoire. Some simple standards would avoid all that. Easy, right?
Neil refused. He said he based assignments on students’ “strengths and attributes.” John said they trusted his judgement - because he’s faculty.
In other words - Neil Does What Neil Wants.
I wondered - was my impregnability a strength, or an attribute? And how did it affect which repertoire I was assigned?
Julia Green, the University of Rochester’s Title IX Coordinator, suggested that I limit my contact with him instead. She proposed my only being in the room with him when I absolutely had to be.
I said that was fine. It was still less than I wanted. It was still a compromised solution. It still meant I had an intrusive man with no impulse control free to say or do whatever he wanted while I was on the podium.
But I was tired of fighting about it, so I said okay. It freed up some of my time to invest in other priorities and other faculty relationships, and it cut down my time forced into a room with the guy.
Later I got a note from John Hain saying there had been a misunderstanding. I was to return to all of Neil’s classes, all the time, because it was “essential to his pedagogy.”
Julia jumped into the exchange and said she didn’t remember any kind of attendance policy. John stood his ground.
I objected. Seriously? Why were these guys so weirdly invested in controlling my physical presence? My being out of the room affected nobody but me.
Neil engaged in misconduct - and received no consequences for it. And he’s allowed to unilaterally call the shots on the Title IX accommodations?
Yes, that’s correct. Neil Gets What Neil Wants.
We were in a tangle over this during the final concert of the calendar year, where I was conducting the Dvorak cello concerto. I was also, still, pressing for some standards around repertoire and orchestra time, because the schedule had gotten very uneven.
Neil had gotten more and more visibly angry with me during the end of the rehearsal cycle. He would bark at me when he wanted me to move on in rehearsal. When the soloists’ teacher asked him for comments, he would angrily shake his head and refuse to speak. (The teacher mentioned it to me, because the behavior was so bizarre.)
The Dvorak cello concerto was last on the program. It was a 45-minute piece on a 90 minute program. Out of a 100-minute dress rehearsal, I was left with 30 minutes to rehearse.
Yes, 30 minutes on a dress rehearsal for a 45-minute piece. Other students were conducting, but Neil, as faculty, had control of the time. He’d certainly had no trouble telling me to get off the box when he wanted to.
When there were 40 minutes left on the clock - and there is a very big clock on stage - Neil stood onstage, slowly making minor corrections to the previous piece. The man was not in a hurry.
He asked for an entire stage reset before the Dvorak. The sound guy complained that the change disrupted the mic placement. The players only had time to scoot their chairs around and complained that they couldn’t see. Neil just shrugged.
The stage crew seemed concerned. “They’re cutting into your time? That’s not right,” one of them said. The soloists’ teacher was also in disbelief. I stood with them in the back of the hall as they became more and more shocked as the clock ticked down and Neil stood up there wasting time. “What is he doing?” the teacher asked, very, very frustrated.
I knew what he was doing. This is one of the things under investigation. But what happened, happened. There were a lot of people there to see it. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that Neil didn’t sabotage a dress rehearsal - which affected me, a student soloist who worked hard to win a concerto competition, and an orchestra - because he was angry. Angry that I’d refused to be pushed back into a room with him because of his misconduct. Angry that I’d pressed for some basic standards. I can’t emphasize this enough. The guy gets irrationally angry. He does not control it. The school doesn’t either.
He casually said I could hold the orchestra over time. But the dress rehearsal ended at 5:30 and concert start time was 7:30. People had to eat, go home, change clothes, come back and be in their seats well before the first downbeat. Holding them over was not feasible. Not for the amount of time we’d need to properly work the piece.
I reported this to John Hain, who told me these were only allegations, and I was welcome to make a formal report. No surprise. Eastman has a Title IX Coordinator who is a strong defender of Men Who Get Reported (including himself).
So I filed a report with the U of R - on everything from the original problems, to the retaliatory behavior, to the school’s mishandling of the situation.
The formal allegations - still currently open - are against Neil Varon and John Hain. Both continue to have considerable control over my activities at Eastman. Neither has had any oversight since I made the report. One has threatened to sue me.
In January, Crystal Sellers Battle was appointed to be my “liaison” for the reporting process. I had one call with her. She said she wanted to fight for me. She said she was heartbroken that I didn’t feel like I had anybody on my side.
She said she said she didn’t think it was a good idea for Neil and I to have prolonged contact during an ongoing investigation. She also asked me to report anything “weird” I encountered with the other grad students. She said she didn’t want them coming for me in “a lynch mob.”
(I did see - over someone’s shoulder - that one of the grad students had a Google Doc called “Rebecca Points.” But - who knows - maybe that was the tally of points for a totally different Rebecca in somebody’s ultimate frisbee league. Let’s not jump to conclusions.)
Crystal Sellers Battle proposed a plan - the same one I proposed in October - in which I worked alone and submitted videos of my work for feedback to other faculty. I said that was fine.
A few days later, she sent me an about-face email, other deans cc’d, saying it was “imperative” that I attend classes with Neil to get my degree, and that he would be watching me conduct from the back of the room without speaking.
(We tried that once. Not only did he speak after being given instructions not to, he came up to me after I was done and asked me to give him my score so he could look at it. Give Neil Varon a line, and he will intentionally cross it, just to prove that he can.)
I said I refused to go along with this plan. It would be an extremely uncomfortable arrangement. No one had asked me about it, and I never would have agreed to it. It was also the second time someone from the school’s administration had expressed concern about our having prolonged contact, and then tried to pressure me into it. I said the school was welcome to fail me out of the program.
I never heard from Crystal again. So much for a liaison.
But I did suddenly get a syllabus from Neil. With a strict attendance policy. Half a letter grade per absence. My guess is that Neil has never had a syllabus or attendance policy in his life. Some of his students have been away from his classes for months or weeks at a time with no issue.
But now we had an attendance policy. I confronted him about it. I said he, too, was welcome to fail me. (And again - why are these guys so obsessed with this? That, by itself, was becoming concerning. All I asked for was to be left alone to do my work, and it had reached a level where I was feeling chased down over this.)
I also raised the issue to other faculty I had worked with. Three tenured faculty - all women - took on the issue on my behalf. This prompted Jamal Rossi to decide it was time (you think??) to come up with a solution. We all met and agreed on a plan. It was nearly identical to the one I proposed in my very first meeting. But now, as an added bonus, the whole situation had deteriorated and feelings were very, very bad. Well done, Eastman.
The school didn’t offer any support for that plan when it was put into practice, either. We agreed on how we would all communicate. Neil stopped cooperating, and the school didn’t do anything about it. They said they would make sure I had clear assignments so I knew when I was assisting with the orchestras. It never happened. I have given university investigators a short list of opportunities I was excluded from because of this situation - and those are just the ones I know about. (Although, having now heard from several students who felt that the Title IX investigation process was seriously flawed, I’ve also said I have no confidence in the validity of the process.)
The studio and the department closed ranks around Neil - hard. By the end of the semester, Neil and his students were giving me the full silent treatment. This, in spite of the fact that I’d offered to talk to the other students about what had gone on and made it clear how I wanted to communicate. (University email, not “Gibson impregnated” chats.) The response was overwhelming silence.
I started mysteriously getting messages passed to me through the ensemble manager, because they refused to communicate directly. There was at least one time when I found out about my own rehearsal schedule only after it was posted on the ensemble’s website.
One day, I left a score behind in a rehearsal. I was packing my bag outside in the hallway, with my back turned to the room. One of Neil’s students had been silently standing behind me the whole time, with the score I’d left behind in hand.
I turned around - startled to find somebody there - and they handed it to me and walked away without saying a word. It was one of the strangest interactions I’ve ever had.
It actually happened twice. I’m forgetful as I leave rehearsals. I left another score behind. The exact same student did the exact same thing. Message received.
That’s how bizarre and hostile this got. No surprise. Studios congeal around whoever is leading it - and this one was a little bit culty and a little bit insane.
Neil’s students policed what he liked, what he didn’t like, and what kept him happy. One of them told me that the previous year, they had started doing “baby talk” with him to keep him in a good mood.
I saw a little bit of it in action. A tenured professor - Our Director of Orchestras - and one of his TA’s talking baby talk to each other. I can’t make this stuff up. I saw it with my own eyes. My brain nearly melted from the weirdness of it all.
As all this happened, Jamal Rossi engaged in some first-rate gaslighting when I raised the issue, which was pretty bold, given that everyone had agreed to the plan in writing. How did I expect to be informed of things, he asked, when I refused all contact with Our Director of Orchestras? (I hadn’t.) We had always agreed that the ensemble manager would be our point of contact, he said. (We didn’t. Their name never came up.)
If you want to know the single moment that made me write my very first post about this, it was Jamal covering for Neil just days after the NY Philharmonic article broke. That’s what tipped it.
Eastman’s administration asked Brad Lubman to offer me some alternative mentorship. Nothing came of it. But literally hours after telling me that he’d had “The Conversation” with the deans - as he glibly put it - he gave a lecture - with me and all of the other students present - and talked about what an awesome hire Neil had been and all the things he loved about the guy.
I was floored. I objected, first in private, then in public. I said it needed to be addressed. Blithely saying a guy who’s under investigation is a great hire, in a departmental lecture, with the student who reported him sitting in the room, as well as other students who are being questioned about him, is a problem.
The only response I got was a brand new syllabus - eight weeks into the semester - making it clear that the matter would not be addressed. Oh, and a note from university investigators saying my messages had been “passed” to them.
This is not my first encounter with this department. I took private lessons with Mark Scatterday long ago when my wife was in school here - my first instruction in conducting.
There were constant sexist comments and a lot of cruelty. “I don’t want to make a girl cry,” “This chick’s insecure,” “Don’t think you’re going to get a job just because you’re a woman.” For a long time, I wondered if I’d misremembered how bad it had been. I found my lesson notes several years later. My memory was correct. At one point, he told me Neil was openly sexist and unlikely to admit women. (The pot calling the kettle black if ever I’ve heard it.)
I remember talking about some of this to the executive director of the RPO, where I worked at the time in an entry-level admin job. He looked shocked said, “You know that’s actionable, right?” I didn’t even know what “actionable” meant. I didn’t know that any of it was abnormal.
No surprise - the lessons did not go well. At one point, he told me he needed to stop teaching me because he had once had a stalker, and teaching me was “scary.” I got angry. He acted hurt. He said he was sharing something very personal and being vulnerable with me, and I wasn’t taking it well.
I sent him what I’m sure was a very angry follow-up email later. I said that my gender shouldn’t affect his willingness to teach me. I may have even asked how all of this affected women’s admission to Eastman’s wind conducting program. The question was certainly on my mind. (And the program doesn’t have the track record to show otherwise.)
I ran into him in Eastman’s lobby a few days later. He stopped me and said I had accidentally sent the email to his wife. I told him I didn’t know his wife and didn’t have her email address. He said he didn’t know how it had happened. He insisted I had accidentally sent it to her, she was upset, and that he couldn’t keep working with me.
Yes, indeed, I stood in Eastman’s lobby, in my early twenties, while one of my first conducting teachers spoke to me like I was a woman he was having an affair with. I had married my own wife less than a year earlier. It made me worry about upsetting my teachers’ wives for a long time.
A few weeks before the semester started - this past fall - I got a text from Mark Scatterday. It was off. Nothing inappropriate. But cryptic. And I had no idea why he was texting me. I didn’t know if he had my number from before, or if he’d gotten it from the school.
I didn’t like it. When I got it, the person I was with asked if everything was okay. I must have looked rattled.
It turned out that it was about a TA picnic he was planning. I didn’t go. Picnics aren’t mandatory, and I didn’t want one more uncomfortable situation. I did not make up an excuse. I learned that there was some gossip about my mysterious absence.
At the first department meeting of the year, he found me and pulled me aside. He told me he liked my hair. He said it was “surreal” that I was back. Yeah, man. Surreal.
And then I walked into the first class I was assigned to. I met the other TA’s. One of his students said, “I hear you two have quite a history.”
Awesome.
Welcome (back) to the Eastman Conducting Department.
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