12: See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil
Sexual Abuse in Classical Music Institutions
A gut-wrenching article has spread like a wildfire in the past few days.
Warning: the description of sexual assault is horrific.
My deepest gratitude goes out to Cara Kizer for revealing her experiences through this article, written and extensively researched by Sammy Sussman. Kizer’s bravery, along with others who have brought cases of sexual violence, abuse and institutional depravity to light, has the potential to change a sick system.
The full article is available here.
The story: In 2010, Cara Kizer was a newly-hired assistant principle hornist at the New York Philharmonic, the second woman ever to win a spot in the orchestra’s brass section (the Philharmonic was founded in 1842). While the orchestra was on tour, she was invited to a rented apartment of her colleague, trumpeter Matthew Muckey. Another colleague, oboist Liang Wang, was present and offered her a glass of wine. She doesn’t remember anything after drinking from this glass, and woke up naked in Muckey’s bed, surrounded by vomit stains. A local hospital ran a DNA test and confirmed that she had been raped by Muckey.
The story is awful so far, but goes into surreal territory hereafter: after an extensive investigation, Muckey and Wang were fired from the NY Phil, eight … e-i-g-h-t ... years after the assault. They subsequently complained to the Local 802 Musicians’ Union and successfully got their jobs back. Meanwhile, the other female member of the brass section, Amanda Stewart, who had openly supported her colleague throughout entire situation, faced astonishing backlash. Both women were in probationary phases in the employment contracts. Stewart recalled colleagues berating her: “How dare a probationary, non-tenured member accuse a tenured member of anything” and “If you don’t stop supporting her publicly, this is going to harm your tenure”. Stewart was denied tenure by her colleagues, who voted 8-1 against her.
Kizer signed a NDA, accepted a financial settlement and left the orchestra, believing that she would also have been denied tenure, ostensibly for artistic short-comings, an aspect of artistic contracts that make it possible to fire non-tenured employees at whim. All a music director or group of colleagues must do is state that the colleague falls short of artistic expectations and they are done away with. No questions asked. Both women have not had contracts with major orchestras since then. The assaulters, meanwhile, hold onto their positions at the NY Philharmonic.
How is this possible?!
Stories like this should, of course, not be possible. But sexual abuse in classical music institutions has a long history. There have been recent uncoverings of abuse-cultures cultivated and running rampant, particularly between the 1930s-1990s, in the most prominent music education institutions: the Curtis Institute, Chethams’ School of Music, Juilliard, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, etc.
Violinist Lara St. John did groundbreaking work to break the taboo of openly disclosing sexual abuse in music conservatories, revealing the rape at age 14 by her teacher at Curtis, Jascha Brodsky. At the time when the rape occurred, she was told by the dean Robert Fitzpatrick: “Oh, for God’s sake, who do you think they’re going to believe? Some 14-year-old kid or someone who has been here for decades?”. It took 35 years for her abuse to be recognized. A former student at Chetham’s School of Music, Frances Andrade, committed suicide after testifying against the former head of music, Michael Brewer, who sexually abused her at age 14. These are just two stories in a bottomless sea of sexual abuse cases in the classical music industry.
A 2022 survey from the Independent Society of Musicians revealed that 68% of female orchestra players experienced incidents of sexual harassment. Musicians: look around at your female colleagues, almost 7 out of 10 are intimately familiar with sexual harassment in the workplace. And that’s merely the reported number. Many cases of abuse go unreported because they are mired in shame and self-recrimination.
How did we get here?
I believe that a rape-tolerant culture in the classical music industry might boil down to three factors. This is a spontaneous proposal and certainly needs to be carved out with more precision and reflection, but here goes:
Two of these factors are individual-level traits, and one is a big fat systemic failing. Actually, they all boil down to systemic failings, as do most societal illnesses.
‘Pathological immaturity’: Musicians’ developmental process can be thwarted if they are not granted the space and time to develop as human beings, which, in a small subset of the population leads to disastrously sociopathological belief systems. Rape can seem, to a rapist, to be a good stand-in for consensual sex if he lacks the ability to humanize the other, recognize the other’s emotional depth and sense out the other’s experiential complexity. Empathy can be thwarted or even deadened if a person lacks access to human developmental experiences and processes. People who needed time and care to grow into responsible and empathic adults, but for some reason or another (such as extreme training regimes in childhood, or perhaps their own histories on the receiving end of abuse), didn’t, tend to harm others. That’s pathological immaturity.
‘I’m better than you’: if musicians are drinking the toxic Kool-Aid of comparative and hierarchical thinking, they can mentally and emotionally justify sociopathic expressions that display and solidify power differentials. Rape can be an act of sexual gratification for the rapist, but it is also, perhaps predominantly, an expression of power and dominance of one person over another. Power dynamics show up in other ways. There are SO MANY cases of music teachers who entered into sexual relationships with students as young as 14, 15, 16 years old. Luckily, we currently live in a society in which it is generally understood, that sexual relations between a teacher and student, ESPECIALLY an under-age student, cannot be considered equal (or consensual in the minor’s case), regardless of how big the student’s crush on the teacher might be. The teacher-student relationship is just one hierarchical relationship structure in the industry. It could just as well be the conductor-orchestra player, juror-contestant, or presenter-musician. In the case of Cara Kizer, there was a clear power differential. Her rapist, Matthew Muckey, had tenure. She did not. If one exists in an environment in which every day, every single f-ing day, one aligns humans on a scale of better-worse, more powerful-less powerful, more worthy-less worthy, then it’s not so very surprising when the power expression turns criminal. It’s just one step further down the road of toxic hierarchicals.
‘Rape requires a supportive culture’: Now, onto the systemic issue: rape doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires enabling cultures and organizational structures. Abuser-tolerant organizations are characterized by an adherence to entrenched traditions and the idolization of leading figures who may perceive themselves as exempt from societal norms and responsibilities. It seems to me that the general culture of the Classical Music industry might find itself situated somewhere within two (seemingly) disparate model groups: 1) the church and 2) college frat boys. The church model enables ‘gods’ to carve out their own self-serving rules, and assigns lower-standing members of the society into servile and enabling roles. The frat-boy-world is steeped in hook-up culture and sexual competition among its ‘brothers’. Both models display a general disregard or even disdain for women who are viewed as lower-class members of the society.
I have no idea what motivated Matthew Muckey and Liang Wang to violate Cara Kizer’s fundamental human right to safety and bodily autonomy. It could have been a pathological immaturity, a desire to dominate, or just a feeling that they could get away with it, or any number of other explanations. I do hope they will come forward and make public amends for the 14 year-old assault. The vast majority of humans are capable of feeling and expressing genuine remorse, and of making meaningful reparations after grave life mistakes. I hope Muckey and Wang will offer this form of healing, for Cara Kizer, but also for themselves. I also hope that the New York Philharmonic, who tried to sweep a serious assault under the carpet - by waiting 8 years to act and by giving the perpetrators their jobs back - will have the courage to engage in some deep soul-searching and meaningful change processes.
We can do better.
“Teaching women how to defend themselves against male rapists is not the same as working to change society so that men will not rape.”
bell hooks