The WaPo Article

about Katherine Needleman

I had to take a day to think about this rather giant article by Geoff Edgers in the Post about someone many of us consider to be a great heroine. I know that Katherine is not particularly enamoured of it, and although I can understand that, there are also some good things about it.

What I disagree primarily with is some of the verbiage: she is called a “vigilante”, she “spurned” the concertmaster (that’s just in the headline), her commentary is deemed “scathing” and she is described as “strident” by an attorney. The X headline is “The Most Dangerous Woman in Classical Music”

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I am someone who is only too well aware of the colossal amount of egregious and almost always unpunished amount of sexual abuse in classical music. My story came out in 2019 about my abuse and rape at 14 years old at The Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and since then, I, like Katherine, have heard from hundreds if not thousands of women with who have or have had no real solution. It seemed to be either “submit or quit”, and more than half of the people I heard from have indeed been abused out of the field.

What Katherine has been sharing what these men say and do when they know they can get away with it. Mostly, she posts only their own words or actions, occasionally some justice is to be had when the complicit institutions realize they can no longer keep their dirty secrets, and a few men have left or lost their jobs. I think we all know that the abuse she has exposed is only a tiny spark of the yet dormant volcano, and somehow SHE’s the “dangerous” one? NOT the men that every woman in the field will have to somehow safely navigate to get an education and a job?

I find that typical of the mischaracterization of any woman who speaks out against any man. Although the concertmaster admitted in 2018 to propositioning Katherine in 2005 after lying for years about it, he now was somehow allowed to double back on the Baltimore Symphony’s own report and blame Katherine for the incident. In my opinion, the official report should have been quoted as rebuttal. In that report, on pages 13 and 16, Carney admitted to propositioning Katherine, and admitted that she declined. Why was that somehow left out?

Also, Katherine points out that she had exactly one communication with a previous member of the BSO in over 10 years.

This person then accused her of being a bully in the article without this context. Hm. As I’ve discussed with many in the past years, it’s always just a bit more disappointing when it’s women riding the complicity bus.

Also, and I can imagine this had some sort of legal barrier, Katherine and I are seen in photos at protest which we organized in front of Lincoln Center, yet the reason for the protest (the New York Philharmonic’s horrific treatment of the first ever two women in the brass section and the NDA one was forced to sign) was not really discussed.

Katherine is quoted: “In classical music, we may be worse off than we were 40 years ago,” Needleman says. “There’s certainly no answer in the legal system.”

Well, that’s for sure. 40 years ago is when everything went wrong for me, and thanks to Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations, I’ve never had any kind of justice in court. My pedophile rapist died unpunished, and as you can read near the end of this article, I am once again being penalized for speaking out against men being rewarded for bad behaviour.

I’d encourage everyone to also read the thoughtful opinion by Anne Midgette on her Facebook.

And here’s my quote, and why I 100% salute Katherine for all her fearless work as the great Queen of Filth: “People have said, oh, this is no way to achieve any kind of solution,” said Canadian violinist Lara St. John, a close friend who is similarly outspoken about the treatment of women in classical music. “It’s like, I’m sorry but we’ve sat back all these years and nothing has f---ing happened. So the only way is to scream it from the rooftops.

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