Earlier this year, as the spring semester at Bard was winding down, a petition circulated among the members of the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. The petition was ultimately presented to the administration of the College.
WAMC's Sam Dingman spoke with one of the authors of that petition, Adriano Piscopo. Dingman and WAMC's Lucas Willard discussed more on Northeast Notebook.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Editor's note: this conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Dingman: Adriano told me that this petition was put together after revelations about Botstein's alleged connections to known sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. And in addition to his duties as the president of Bard, Botstein was also the conductor of some musical ensembles at Bard – including the Conservatory Orchestra, which Adriano was a member of. I'm going to read a couple excerpts from the petition that Adriano and others put together:
"The position of a conductor is an authoritarian one, with the aim of getting all of the members of the orchestra to submit to one artistic vision. What differs with Botstein is not just his control over the orchestra, but his complete and unquestioned control of the broader program and college. Some conductors go about this in different ways, and the way Maestro Botstein conducts himself is, at the very least, belittling – treating us as nothing but noise at the end of his stick. Unlike other orchestras or conservatories, Botstein's control extends to all major decisions regarding the conservatory. Thus, our say as musicians — the ones producing the music — is almost always overlooked, creating an overarching culture of fear and silencing. How are we supposed to feel safe and empowered coming out against sexual misconduct and abuse if we can barely voice our concerns regarding musical opinions?"
The petition then goes on to say: "We dissent playing the music of Mahler and Magnard under the complete artistic control of someone who still refuses accountability for a well-documented close relationship with a known sex offender. Furthermore, we refuse to play this music under someone who has yet to use his power to take accountability for the culture of sexual misconduct he has (and continues to) let happen on campus." The petition goes on to say that they refuse to perform under Botstein, and demand a new conductor.
Willard: Regarding how this petition was actually written, what did Adriano tell you about how they actually phrased things and put it together?
Dingman: He said that in many ways this petition was actually the culmination of a growing sense among many in the ensemble that the school was not doing enough when it came to issues of sexual assault and abuse of power. He referenced the fact that prior to the Epstein revelations, there had been allegations of assault against a music professor in the program, and that Botstein's connections to Epstein were, in Adriano's words, "the tipping point." Here's a little bit more of what he said:
Piscopo: Really, what our petition was kind of showing was, in great part, not only is not everyone comfortable seeing him for three hours twice a week when we rehearse, but most importantly, we wanted to ensure that after the case of sexual assault, and especially now, that we wanted to see what is the administration doing to actually combat this.
Willard: Do we know how many students actually signed the petition, and what happened after it was circulated?
Dingman: Adriano told me that a little over half of the orchestra signed this petition. There are about 100 people in the orchestra. The petition was then submitted to the administration, and some time after that, Adriano told me there was a conversation with Botstein about it.
Piscopo: So what this really culminated in was a general meeting with Botstein, and he talked to the whole orchestra. It felt a lot of the times that he just wasn't understanding what our concerns were, not in a necessarily malicious way, but I just don't think he really understood what it meant to have a culture of fear.
Willard: I think that phrase, a 'culture of fear,' really stands out there. What did he go on to say about that?
Dingman: One thing Adriano really emphasized in this conversation is the nature of the classical music world, and how delicate and important students' relationships with their conductors and teachers are. This is a world where your ability to rise through the ranks is often based on recommendations and relationships that the people who train you have, and so it puts students in a position where they need to be on that person's good side if they want to move forward in their career. And I think another important piece of context here is that Adriano said that while Bard does have mechanisms in place for people to report situations that make them feel uncomfortable, many students feel like those systems have flaws.
Piscopo: We do have some resources, anonymous hotlines. We have the Office of Title IX. I mean, I know there's a lot of problems with the Title IX legal side of things that the college just can't control. But there's other problems just in these programs where maybe not all of them are confidential, or they don't actually, I don't know, resolve to any meaningful action. They make it very difficult on the victim to get through, to get any meaningful things through. But in general, I think the difficulty was that there's this recognition, at least in the student body, that people don't feel comfortable speaking up.
Willard: I just want to know what Adriano thought about Botstein's reputation as a conductor in the more broad world of classical music and his status. What did you have to say?
Dingman: This is really kind of an important kind of button on the conversation, I think, Lucas. Because just to close the loop on the petition, Botstein was not removed as conductor, so the the college did not agree to that provision of the petition. But Adriano really recognized that, for better or for worse, Botstein is a very consequential figure in the world of classical music.
Piscopo: The conservatory kind of exists because of him. From what I've understood, he's the founder, but also the main kind of person who brings in the income for the conservatory.
A lot of us are now worrying: Will the conservatory survive? Because, I mean, as we know, colleges in general are really struggling, and especially in the arts, just aren't getting any any funding in general. And I think in the U.S. there really isn't that much appreciation for and funding for classical music. And so, bringing this back to Bard, it's like, what do we do if he's gone? Which of course doesn't excuse his actions, doesn't mean that he shouldn't face the consequences if he's found guilty for any of these egregious things that he's done, but it is one of the worries that we have, and also a difficulty that a lot of us have been thinking when approaching this issue.
Dingman: I did reach out to Bard and Botstein about this petition situation and did not receive a specific reply to those questions.
