Baltimore Symphony Oboist Has Become A Clearing House For Classical Music’s #MeToo Reckoning

When bad news hits the world of classical music, the source thousands of musicians turn to for details is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s principal oboe player.

Whether it’s about the arrest of a once-beloved Pennsylvania violinist, an all-male judging controversy at a tuba competition in South Korea, or allegations of “neverending” sexual abuse at a prominent conservatory, Katherine Needleman is guaranteed to have the scoop.

Locally, Needleman is best known as the BSO musician who went public with accusations of sexual harassment against concertmaster Jonathan Carney in 2018. She subsequently filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discrimination complaint against the Baltimore orchestra after it declined to suspend or remove Carney.

“What I wanted was for them [the orchestra] to deal with the problem,” Needleman said. She also wanted “a [expletive] apology.”

Needleman’s online presence had been growing ever since the BSO concluded its internal investigation in September 2018, but after the publication in April of an explosive New York magazine article about an alleged rape at the New York Philharmonic, Needleman galvanized a movement to levy more accusations of misogyny and abuse in classical music.

“I want to improve conditions for women,” the Ellicott City native said. “That’s what I’ve been fighting for for a long time.”

More than 175 women, nonbinary and other musicians from marginalized groups have sent accounts to her via email or Facebook. With permission, Needleman strips most identifying information, sometimes subbing in placeholders like “fancy Midwestern music school,” and posts harrowing accounts that include allegations of teenage sexual abuse and major orchestra principals who have been accused of texting inappropriate photos. She also links to “bad news” reports and announcements.

Some of the men referenced on Needleman’s platforms have stepped down, been dismissed or fired from prestigious positions, including musicians in Texas and Alberta, who have attributed their employment troubles to Needleman’s posts. Regardless of whether there’s a cause and effect, her posts sometimes cause a stir. Her Facebook page now generates more than 950,000 views a month, and her four-month-old Substack newsletter has more than 2,500 subscribers.

“As a woman trombonist, I am one of the many that has stories,” one supporter wrote in July to Needleman, 46. “I want to thank you for being the incredible warrior that you are. It matters and makes a difference.”

A handful of classical music’s “Big Fancy Men,” as Needleman calls them, lost their jobs after 2017 sexual assault allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein touched off a cultural reckoning. In 2019, Washington National Opera artistic director Placido Domingo stepped down after he was accused of harassing and assaulting nine women over three decades. More came forward after the Associated Press published an investigation of the superstar tenor. Others accused of sexual misconduct at the time include international conductor Charles Dutoit, Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil and the late Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine.

Those losing their jobs in this second wave of #MeToo allegations in classical music include two tenured musicians at the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra who reportedly disparaged Needleman to colleagues.

The orchestra told The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, that its investigation into clarinetist Slavko Popovic and oboist Alex Klein turned up “deeply troubling comments posted online.”

Needleman posted screenshots of messages from both men in April, days before the Calgary Philharmonic announced it hired an outside investigator. Those screenshots included group chats with Philharmonic members and postings where a Reddit user with Popovic’s name used slurs against women and Black people.

In emails and group chat messages that were forwarded to the Baltimore oboist and appear to contain texts from Popovic, he referred to Needleman using crude terms for female anatomy, while Klein dubbed her the “Queen of Filth” — a moniker she has since embraced and used in her own messaging. Neither musician commented to The Globe and Mail, but on Facebook, Klein has characterized the situation as “a misunderstanding” and accused his former orchestra of “erroneously believing I am a misogynist.”

“We need to show our industry and music-loving public that there are consequences for inappropriate behaviour,” Needleman told the paper.

She also amplified accusations against Demondrae Thurman, a euphonium professor who was removed from all positions at Indiana University this spring. Thurman is accused of soliciting sex acts from a high school senior, which he claimed were consensual in messages to the alleged victim obtained by Indiana’s student newspaper. After the young musician went public with her accusations in April, Needleman spread the word on her own platforms, and dedicated a Substack post to an Oct. 18 article from the Indiana Daily Student about Title IX investigations at the music school. She had previously called out Indiana’s prestigious Jacob’s School of Music in 2021, when only one out of 48 tenure-track professors for several sections of music instruction was female.

“When you see women fully excluded,” the oboist wrote in a July 2024 Substack post, “you can rest assured the harassment and assault are also likely right there around the corner.”

In June, Needleman and her friend, concert violinist Lara St. John, organized a protest and press conference at New York’s Lincoln Center. Standing in front of the plaza’s iconic fountains, Needleman and St. John delivered a petition signed by more than 6,000 people to the New York Philharmonic requesting they free French horn player Cara Kizer, the alleged rape victim at the center of the New York magazine story, from the non-disparagement clause of a separation agreement she signed in 2012.

The two men implicated in Kizer’s alleged assault were initially fired, then won their jobs back through union arbitration in 2020. After New York magazine published its account this April, they were officially dismissed in November after the Philharmonic completed a widespread inquiry that uncovered 14 new claims of inappropriate behavior. Both men denied the accusations.

Although it’s not clear what role the protest played, the Philharmonic did release Kizer from portions of the NDA. CEO Gary Ginstling also resigned; “BYE-BYE TO GARY GINSTLING,” was the subject line on one of Needleman’s July Substack emails.

Not everyone in the music world supports Needleman’s burn-all-bridges approach to advocacy. British classical music blogger Norman Lebrecht called Needleman a “feminist agitator” in a post he wrote defending a musician whose alleged victims sent information to Needleman.

Taking aim (sometimes anonymously) at arts leaders can be risky. Experts said they leave aggregators like Needleman vulnerable to defamation lawsuits, and could pose challenges later for victims if they try to sue for sexual harassment.

“I’m conflicted about it,” said Anita Mazumdar Chambers, a principal at The Employment Law Group in Washington, D.C. She understands the sense of catharsis that comes with going public outside of the court system, but “for our firm, it is a better practice not to post on social media.”

Judges don’t look favorably on social media postings, said Chambers, who represents workers who claim they have been sexually harassed. Defense attorneys are always looking for content they can spin. “It all gets scrutinized,” she said.

Leigh Goodmark, a professor at The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law who has studied gender-based violence and the law, said recent high-profile court cases are cause for concern. In 2022, Johnny Depp won a defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, who alleged abuse in an op-ed for The Washington Post. And last year, novelist Stephen Elliott won a settlement from the creator and anonymous contributors to a Google document list of “Media Men” and their alleged sins, which ranged from unwelcome direct messages to violence.

Both cases represent a “retaliatory use of the legal system,” Goodmark said. That’s her concern for Needleman — “that the system will be used against her in some way.”

Needleman never could have imagined her joint career as a musician and activist when she auditioned to become the top oboist at her hometown orchestra two decades ago. “I never thought of myself as a left-wing, liberal feminist at all,” said the soft-spoken brunette.

Over a recent lunch, Needleman recalled her audition process to join the BSO at 24, and how she initially enjoyed a cordial working relationship with Carney.

Two years later, in October 2005, Needleman heard a knock at her hotel room door. It was 3:15 a.m. in Barcelona, where BSO members had stayed up until the wee hours celebrating a successful performance on a Spanish tour.

Carney, then the BSO’s leading violinist and highest-paid musician, was standing at her door. The married 40-something father of three asked if they could have sex in order to “complete their onstage relationship.”

Needleman, shocked, said no.

“I was young, and I had such a good relationship with him,” she said.

Carney initially denied the hotel room proposition after Needleman reported it to orchestra administrators. But during a 2018 BSO investigation, he admitted she was telling the truth.

In the months following the Barcelona encounter, Carney allegedly made a lewd comment about her breasts; told other musicians he planned to “slam the hell out of her”; repeatedly tried to block Needleman from using staircases; and publicly criticized her playing on multiple occasions, according to Needleman’s sworn affidavit filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Carney’s attorney, longtime symphony donor Neil J. Ruther, maintained his client did nothing wrong and said the hotel room incident “happened 20 years ago.”

The Baltimore Symphony never publicly released its report in full, and the investigator, Melissa McGuire, determined that no disciplinary action was necessary for Carney. She was also aware of, but did not address, two additional accusations against Carney: Making lewd comments about a student’s breasts while visiting Towson University in 2014, and making threats against an employee at another local orchestra in 2018, which resulted in a temporary peace order.

Ruther denied the accusations from the Towson student and employee of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony. The BSO suspended Carney for his role in the latter confrontation.

Needleman and the orchestra submitted documents to the EEOC in 2018 and 2019, then heard nothing for years. In 2023, Needleman closed out her EEOC complaint — “it dragged on forever” — and collected all the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Whitney Clemmons Brown, director of communications for the Baltimore Symphony, said the orchestra is “dedicated to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for everyone.” In an email, Brown said Needleman’s advocacy work is “independent” of her role with the orchestra.

Through it all and ever since, Carney and Needleman have sat a few yards apart onstage. Each concert begins with the oboist supplying a clear, sustained A to tune the orchestra, followed by the concertmaster picking up his bow to signal the downbeat.

Needleman lives outside of Baltimore with her husband and three children. Although her two daughters play string instruments, she does not allow them to play with the Maryland Classical Youth Orchestras, where Carney serves as artistic advisor. Needleman also carefully guards her children’s privacy, and says she’s received disturbing threats.

“I do not put my children on the internet,” she said. “Not with everything that’s going on.”

She declined to share Substack earnings, but said she raised enough money in July to cover her June legal fees.

Melissa Wimbish, one of Baltimore’s most in-demand soprano vocalists, counts herself among those rooting for Needleman to make positive change in the industry. The two musicians first connected in 2021, when Needleman came to her defense after Wimbish spoke up in opposition to controversial comments made by a Baltimore Symphony flutist who has since been fired.

“She was so supportive of me,” Wimbish said. “There are critics, but many of us are not experts on advocacy.”

Baltimore’s oboist advocate “deserves grace, and she deserves to be listened to,” Wimbish said.

“There are a lot of people who are mad at Katherine right now, and that is a very telling thing.”

Rebecca J. Ritzel is an arts and culture writer from Baltimore.

This article has been updated to correct the instruments that Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra members Slavko Popovic and Alex Klein play.