New stories and convictions of abuse in musical education, and the film of the Institute of Ideas debate

Posted: January 11, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Abuse, Chetham's, Higher Education, Music - General, Musical Education, Specialist Music Schools | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

In the last few weeks a series of new stories have come out relating to abuse in musical education. One of those was about the pianist and composer Ian Lake, who taught at Watford School of Music and the Royal College of Music (RCM), had received a little-reported conviction of a sexual offence (of which details remain hazy) in 1995, but was revealed to be a serial abuser; I wrote about the Lake story here. One of the victims spoke of how she went to the then-principal of the RCM, Michael Gough Matthews (who was Principal from 1985 to 1993, and who died last year), and whilst she was given a change of teacher, nothing else happened, so Lake was free to do the same to others. This type of process has been described by multiple victims at different institutions (including, for example, victims of Ryszard Bakst at the Royal Northern College of Music). Matthews’ successor as Principal, Dame Janet Ritterman, who was Principal at the RCM at the time when Lake was convicted (and is now Chancellor of Middlesex University), has been contacted for comment about what was known about Lake, but has declined to respond. One victim was very keen to make clear how safe and relieved she felt after speaking to the journalist Paul Gallagher, and has posted to that effect under another name as a comment under my blog post on Lake.

An article in today’s Independent names another late teacher at the RCM, Hervey Alan, as having attempted a sexual assault on a student; again, when she complained, she received a change of teacher, but no further action was taken. Furthermore, the victim (who was also a student of Lake’s on the piano) underwent a second attempted assault from a college porter, about which nothing was done after she complained. This woman has also detailed the ways in which not being prepared to respond to sexual advances in the professional world could hinder one’s career, a story which is all too familiar, and needs to be considered seriously alongside all the other dimensions to this issue. I have argued for a while that the granting of unchecked power to prominent musicians, administrators, and fixers almost invites the corruption of such power, and more, rather than less, state intervention is needed to ensure that proper employment practices are observed in a freelance world. Many musicians would hate this, for sure, and claim it represented an unwarranted intrusion by government into a field which should be driven by ‘purely musical’ concerns, but in my view the latter serve as a smokescreen for cynical and callous power games.

Several other stories have come to light recently. Robin Zebaida, pianist and examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM, responsible for the ‘grade’ exams that many young musicians take) since 1998, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year old girl at the same time as he was seducing her mother; Zebaida received a two-year conditional discharge, was made to sign the sex offenders register for two years, and pay a £15 victim surcharge. The trial heard of romantic evenings with plentiful alcohol with Zebaida kissing the mother whilst groping the daughter; Zebaida would also claim he touched the daughter lightly on account of back problems she suffered following a car crash which had killed her father and brother. (see reports here, here and here; and also ‘Pianist guilty of sex assault on teenager’, The Daily Telegraph, 3/12/13 – not available online). I am not aware of the ABRSM having made any comment.

In November, Philip Evans, music teacher at the private King Edward’s School, Edgbaston, Birmingham (which dates from 1552 and was set up by Edward VI), pleaded guilty to seven sexual assaults, ten charges of making indecent photographs of children, and six counts of voyeurism; more than 400 000 indecent images were found on his computer (Press Association, ‘Teacher Admits Sexual Assault, 28/11/13). The trial found that Evans, who had also acted as an RAF ‘leader’ in the school’s Combined Cadet Force, had abused teenage boys whilst pretending to measure them for their school uniforms, and installed high tech equipment in changing rooms and showers to film pupils. Evans was sentenced in December to three years and eight months imprisonment (see reports here, here – and here).

A further case was overshadowed by the Michael Brewer trial last year; that of music teacher at various East London schools and choirmaster Michael Crombie. Crombie had first gone on trial in November 2010, then aged 73, on 28 charges of indecent assault upon nine girls aged under 16 and child pornography offences from between 1992 and 2002. The court heard that Crombie had forced young girls to strip and duck their heads in a fish tank, then he would video them. He told one girl aged between 10 and 12 that this technique, ‘bubbling’, would help improve her recorder playing. The court saw a video of a young girl with her wrists and legs bound with his tie, trying to break free and gasping for air before being pushed back into the water. Crombie would also take girls on his lap and molest them under the pretext of helping them with breathing exercises. The court heard that victims were unable to complain because of Crombie’s eminence (he was also a Rotary Club member). He was found guilty of 26 of the charges and jailed for seven years, as well as being ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life, and banned from unsupervised contact with children (see here, and here; also ‘Teacher ‘filmed pupils in his bath’’, Metro, 18/11/10, Fiona Hamilton, ‘Music teacher abused girls during lessons’, The Times, 27/11/10, Mike Sullivan, ‘Perv Sir’s ‘drown’ sessions’, The Sun, 27/11/10, not available online).

In December 2012, Crombie admitted 47 further counts of indecent assaults upon children between 1964 and 1993, and two counts of sexual activity with a child; these included 16 cases which took place at Beal Grammar School and Wanstead High School when Crombie was a teacher there; most of the others occurred when he worked as a private music tutor between 1991 and 2002. 30 new victims, aged between 11 and 17 at the time of the offences, had come forward, after one had been outraged by Crombie’s asking her to act as a character reference during his previous trial in 2010. She described how he would regularly kiss her, ask her to turn up to lessons naked, and imagine how she would feel if he were to rape her, leading to her running out screaming. Another said he told her whilst groping and kissing ‘if you sing the notes right this wouldn’t be happening’. Crombie had had a sexual fling with a 14-year old girl to who he was teaching bassoon at Beal Grammar School, her parents ultimately trusting him to babysit her at home. He would persuade her to perform sex acts upon him in the school’s music room cupboard and also while he was driving. In January 2013, Crombie received a seven-year jail sentence, his earlier sentence having been reduced to five on appeal, so that he had been due for release in May 2013. The judge sharply criticised the school authorities for allowing Crombie to carry on unchallenged for 30 years, noting that complaints had been made to the school on a number of occasion, but no adequate action had been taken (see here, here, and here; also Press Association, ‘Ex-Music Teacher admits Sex Attacks’, 21/12/12; Press Association, ‘Judge criticises School Authorities’, 25/1/13).

An independent inquiry was launched by the Local Safeguarding Childen’s Board at Redbridge, considering which safeguarding systems and processes were in place during the period of Crombie’s serial abuse; this does not appear to have been completed yet (‘Independent inquiry launched into Redbridge music teacher’s abuse of young girls since the 1960s’, Ilford Recorder, 31/1/13).

Following the first conviction, Norman Lebrecht wrote:

And then ask why it always has to be music teachers, and why so often in Britain. Is it because music, like sport, has tactile teaching elements that attract perverts? Or does music grant a license to perverts to act out their fantasies?
I have no statistics to hand, but it’s Don Giovanni to a string quartet that there are ten times as many music teachers who are caught molesting pupils as chemistry or geography beaks. Now why is that? Does music, in some obscure way, attract sadists and corrupters?

Now Greater Manchester Police have made clear that they are considering extradition proceedings against former Chetham’s teacher Chris Ling, about whom multiple accusations of child abuse were made public in February 2013 (see the reports in The Guardian here,here, here, and here. An earlier investigation in 1990, after Ling had left the UK for the US, was dropped, then reopened in 2013, as part of Operation Kiso. Ling had indicated that he might return to the UK for questioning, but never came back. Three other current or former Chetham’s teachers – violin teachers Wen Zhou Li and Malcolm Layfield and conducting teacher Nicholas Smith – and one from the RNCM – double bassist Duncan McTier (now a professor at the Royal Academy of Music) – have all been arrested and the Crown Prosecution Service are currently considering whether to bring charges or rape and/or sexual assault against them
(here, here, and here. Also, The Independent named leading early music director Philip Pickett as the former Guildhall School tutor who has been arrested on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault.

Lucy Powell, Labour MP for Manchester Central, whose constituency includes both Chetham’s and the RNCM, and also Shadow Spokesperson for Childcare, has made clear her support either for a special inquiry into abuse in musical education as part of Operation Yewtree, or a separate public inquiry. Various other MPs have expressed their support, not least former Children’s Minister, Conservative MP Tim Loughton, who tweeted on January 6th ‘Calls for single overarching enquiry into historic child abuse post Savile louder than ever-I’ve asked the PM twice now, will try again’ (@timloughton).

There are so many more cases past and present of which I have been made aware, and cannot share for reasons of confidentiality; and only a small minority take the related issues of widespread bullying, psychological and emotional abuse in both music education and the music profession seriously (see my previous post inviting people to come forward and talk about this subject). If more people knew the extent of this, they would see the necessity of pushing, and not stopping pushing, for action. Hopefully some of the recent revelations may impress on more the seriousness. I have very good reason to believe that these issues are far from merely historic, and that in various institutions abuse may be continuing to this day, and even that some abusers may be using distant foreign trips connected to musical education for this purpose.

One place where a majority of the participants certainly thought otherwise was the Institute of Ideas debate at the Barbican Centre in October 2013, about which I earlier blogged here. The full debate can now be viewed online here – I invite people to watch it and see the rather contemptuous way in which the issues is treated in particular by panellists Heather Piper, Frank Furedi and chair Clare Fox. With the exception primarily of the important contribution by Professor of Education and Music Psychology Susan Hallam, most of the contributions from the panel and indeed from the floor (with the exception of rather angry responses by myself and another former Chetham’s pupil) seem most concerned about any disruption or change to the situation for music teachers, how it would be so terrible for there to be limits on physical contact, how the important thing is about how music ‘touches the soul’, and so on. I felt quite sick after this debate, and the way it was cynically engineered so as to trivialise the whole issue. The rot at the heart of the classical music world needs to be addressed properly as a matter of urgency, however much some will sneer, minimise or dismiss the issue, shy away from things or protect others in the interests of furthering their own career.

The case of Ian Lake, and reflections on the year

Posted: December 30, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Abuse, Chetham's, Higher Education, Music - General, Musical Education, Public Schools, Specialist Music Schools, Westminster, Yehudi Menuhin School | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A new report in today’s Independent, by pioneering journalist Paul Gallagher, lifts the lid upon another sorry episode in the history of abuse in musical education – the story of pianist and composer Ian Lake (1935-2004), piano teacher at Watford School of Music, Associated Board examiner and professor at the Royal College of Music for almost 30 years. Lake wrote three books of Music for Young Pianists (New York: Chappel & Co, 1966); his piano piece The Milky Way ) was on the Associated Board syllabus at one point; this became well-known amongst young pianists. He toured the world as an examiner, and also created a concert series for contemporary music, Music in our Time, which ran in London from 1960 to 1970, through which many young composers (many of whom now have significant reputations) received their first major breaks.

Lake’s name is not entirely new in this context; he was convicted in 1995 on sexual offences, though neither the nature of the conviction nor the sentence (which remains unclear) were widely reported at the time or since, and he was able to continue his concert career soon afterwards. At the time of his death in 2004, one obituary by composer and pianist John White minimised this fact, writing:

Ian Lake’s later years were clouded by a conviction for sexual offences in 1995. But he continued his concert career. Strongly self-willed and stubborn, he had set himself several demanding tasks in the weeks following the diagnosis of his cancer a few months ago, including the recording, with his son Jeremy, of his own arrangements for cello and piano of pieces by G.I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann. The recording sessions went well and represent a satisfactory completion of the last project he was able to undertake.

Another obituary by composer Christopher Hobbs in The Guardian (Christopher Hobbs, ‘Obituaries: Ian Lake: Pianist who championed contemporary composers’, The Guardian, 7/9/04, not available for general access online) did not even mention the conviction.

I and some others have known for a while of various further serious allegations concerning Lake’s actions during the course of his career; now some of his victims, including one man who was abused by Lake from the age of 10, have chosen to speak out. According to his account, Lake was simply removed from his position at some point during his study in the 1970s, but was left free to teach elsewhere; others have spoken of the abuse they encountered at Lake’s hands at the RCM. One former principal of the RCM, Dame Janet Ritterman, under whose directorship Lake continued to teach (and was convicted) declined to answer as to what was known about Lake’s history of abuse. Responses of others in the musical world have been disappointing; too many musicians (including the writers of the obituaries mentioned above) were well-disposed towards Lake for how he had helped their own careers to want to think about how he might have also been responsible for terrible acts leading to a range of destroyed and tormented lives.

As more and more revelations about abusive teachers have emerged, some have branded these a ‘witch hunt’ (one commenter argued that ‘people such as Ian Pace are simply fuelling an environment of paranoia and mistrust which is looking more like a witchhunt every day’) and have often implied that the musicianly qualities of individuals like Lake somehow mitigate their other actions. It is hard to imagine many taking this attitude towards a caretaker, postal worker or comprehensive school teacher accused of similar offences; somehow a distorted morality applies different principles according to class and artistic prestige.

The full extent and scale of Lake’s activities may not be known properly, nor would victims stand a chance of being heard safely and gaining some degree of closure, without a public inquiry of the type for which I and others have been campaigning through the course of this year. Various MPs, including Lucy Powell (Labour, Manchester Central, Shadow Minister for Childcare, and whose constituency contains Chetham’s and the Royal Northern College of Music) and Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham, former Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families), have made clear their own support for this type of judicial inquiry, and I continue to hope that the government will recognise the pressing need for this. Since around 1990, there have been sporadic reports about abuse in music education, which have come to a head this year; I have compiled a summary of these in another blog post here.

Following a minor involvement with the Michael Brewer trial (about which trial I will post a thorough account with full references at a later date) and having been the hoster of the petition for a public inquiry into all types of abuse in musical education, I have become deeply involved in this issue during the course of this year, and the effect has been sobering and often distressing. Whilst collating signatures for the petition, a great many people wrote to me with a plethora of awful allegations concerning abuse at all five specialist music schools (Chetham’s, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Purcell School, Wells Cathedral School and St Mary’s Music School) and all the major conservatoires as well (not to mention at choir schools, summer courses, from private teachers, and more – and also in various other countries as well as the UK). To be in possession of such a range of allegations, but unable to pass them on without permission in each individual case, creates a sense of grave responsibility. As well as the direct allegations of abusive teachers, I was made aware of much more information concerning how other people working at these institutions systematically sought to cover up for and protect such teachers, often delivering short shrift to those who complained, or even attempting to bully or blackmail them into silence, more concerned about the reputation of the institutions than the welfare of their pupils. Furthermore, some have tried to excuse such actions on grounds of some type of artistic temperament, alleging that disdain for abuse represented nothing more than a fear of ‘passion’ or ‘intimacy’ (see my post here – the debate in question in full, with question, can be viewed here).

As I have argued elsewhere, all of this is symptomatic of a twisted set of values in the music world, dominated by a culture of prestige which translates musical hierarchies into wider hierarchies between human beings; some individuals’ well-being and livelihoods are deemed more worthy than others, who are easily dehumanised and viewed as little more than thorns in the sides of hallowed musicians. This is a pattern I have observed in various manifestations for many years in the musical world (and have also noticed the extent to which such hierarchies relate not simply to individuals’ prowess and achievements as musicians, but also to their social class), and it legitimises many wider forms of bullying, psychological abuse, blatant discrimination and exclusion, and a generally macho and brutal musical culture, at least where starry musicians are involved. All of this is masked by a veneer of culture and civilised values which is supposed to result from the elevating power of classical music; the reality is very far from this.

Nonetheless, many musicians (and especially former students at specialist music schools) have lent their support for a full inquiry into abuse in musical education. With only a few exceptions, this has not been matched from those in senior positions at institutions, or for that matter from musicologists. Scholars and academics should be amongst those best placed to undertake critical investigation into the wider cultures and ideologies of music-making (and there are certainly some researching musical education who have gone some way towards doing so). However, with increasing numbers of academic positions being held by practitioners rather than scholars, and the wider effect of the new ‘impact’ requirement upon scholarly production (placing great value, and concomitant implications for research funding for academic departments, upon work which in one or other sense can be shown to have an impact outside of academia) leads to more and more academics producing deferential and sometimes hagiographic writings about musicians and musical institutions from whom they might potentially receive external favour and advancement.

A major police investigation, Operation Kiso, was mounted by Greater Manchester Police, leading to four arrests to date. A former long-term teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama has also been arrested on multiple occasions. Some other investigations continue. Revelations have been made public about various individuals who are now dead, including Lake, leading piano teacher at Chetham’s and the RNCM, Ryzsard Bakst, co-founder and director of music at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Marcel Gazelle (see my blog post with links to other reports on Gazelle), former Dean of Manchester Cathedral (in daily contact with choristers from Chetham’s), Robert Waddington (this blog post includes for links to articles), and Menuhin school cello teacher Maurice Gendron. There are quite a number of other late individuals about whom I have been made privy to allegations, but it is not possible for the police to undertake prosecutions for obvious reasons. Also, cases of abuse where the victim was aged 16 or above, before 2003, or cases of psychological and emotional abuse, or physical abuse (for which there are statutory limitations for reporting), and of course institutional complicity, cannot be addressed simply by criminal prosecutions.

There are various considerations here. The presumption of innocence is vital, as is the principle by which individuals cannot be prosecuted for acts which were not criminal offences at the time they were committed. But this does not make the effects of the latter acts any less serious. When faced by cases of sexual offences (or domestic violence, or racial crimes), some on the left can resort to a black-and-white Old Testament style moralising that might even make the Daily Mail blush. Simply demonising such offenders, calling them scum and so on, may provide a focus for some abstracted hatred in need of an outlet (such as is directed by others towards immigrants, benefit claimants, and so on), but this trivialises the issue by reducing it simply to one of human wickedness, which minimises the issues of institutional responsibility and the culture which allows, arguably even sometimes encourages, abuse to occur. Many abusers are deeply disturbed individuals, sometimes the victims of abuse themselves, or having been nurtured in a culture where it is normalised (one recent allegations suggests that some students of abusive teachers at music schools may have gone on to repeat such behaviour themselves); they need not only to be kept away from vulnerable children, but also to be helped. It is also simplistic to present abuse as a one-dimensional issue of gender; some sexual abusers have been female (including Kay Brewer, former wife of Michael Brewer, who was convicted alongside her ex-husband), there are many allegations of non-sexual abuse on the part of female teachers and musicians, some of the staunchest and most unyielding defenders and apologists for abusive teachers have also been female, whilst some of their most fervent antagonists have been male.

The press coverage over the course of this year has on the whole been well-researched and measured rather than hysterical, and some articles have chosen to dwell on deeper issues than just the identity of abusers (see in particular articles in the Telegraph here, here, and here, as well as the report following the Channel 4 News investigation which named Gazelle. But both police and media can only ever go a certain way in addressing the wider issues, for the reasons given above. The campaign for a full public inquiry must proceed, and once again I implore all those in agreement to write to their MPs to solicit their support (for details on doing this, see here).

A message from another victim of abuse at a UK music school, calling for others to come forward

Posted: November 25, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Abuse, Music - General, Musical Education, Specialist Music Schools | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I received a message last week from another survivor of abuse in UK musical education, which has since been posted on the blog of Norman Lebrecht here. With permission, I am also reproducing it here. The author has told me of his wish for others to come forward about this and other cases. Even where the perpetrator is now dead, it is still important for there to be acknowledgment of what really went on; I would add that there still needs to be much wider and difficult questions asked about the nature of institutions and the culture of musical education which appears to have facilitated widespread abuse (and not just in the UK). At a recent debate organised by the Institute of Ideas at the Barbican Centre, which I attended, the sociologist Frank Furedi (author of the much-criticised Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: The Jimmy Savile Scandal) argued that recent talk of abuse in musical education stemmed from a fear of ‘intimacy’, and expressed his concern above all that musical teachers were able to ‘touch the soul’, whilst the educationalist Heather Piper made out that the issue was one of self-aggrandisement on the part of the NSPCC and other institutions on the basis of what was argued to be just a few isolated historic cases. I find these attitudes contemptuous, though in milder form they were echoed by all but one of the other panellists and quite a number of audience members. More and more information is emerging all the time, further arrests are being made (including recently of a former teacher in a London college on multiple charges – see here); certainly everyone so accused must be granted the presumption of innocence, but if even a fraction of the allegations were true, this would evidence of something epidemic. I echo my correspondent’s sentiments below, and once again would urge further all those who care about this issue to contact their MPs ( to ask them to give their support to a public inquiry (for details of how to do so, see my earlier blog posts here). There will be an important meeting of all sympathetic MPs in December; the more there are, the greater the pressure will be.

If you would like to contact the author of the below, please feel free to e-mail me (at ian@ianpace.com) with your details, and I will forward them to him.

The tragic story of Frances Andrade and the revelations over the past year of sexual abuse at some of our most prestigious schools of music have stirred up painful memories for me dating from forty years ago.

In the 1970s, I studied piano at the Watford School of Music and was sexually abused over a four-year period by one of the teachers there. The abuse ended when my parents received a letter in the middle of term, stating that the man was no longer able to teach at Watford School of Music and I was then taught by someone else.

However, my abuser continued to teach at the Royal College of Music until 1995 when, I have since learned, he was convicted of a sexual offence. He died in 2004 and his obituary appeared in several daily newspapers.

The experience affected me deeply and stunted my emotional and sexual development. I became withdrawn, anxious and angry. For many years I was unable to form healthy, intimate relationships and bouts of deep depression have been a regular feature of my life.

As a result of intensive psychotherapy, I have been able to appreciate for the first time the seriousness of the damage I suffered but also to realise that I was not, as I used to think, to blame for what happened to me all those years ago. I know I am not my abuser’s only victim and if one of you is reading this, or if any of what I have written resonates with your own experience or knowledge of sexual abuse at either the Watford School of Music or the Royal College of Music in the period before 1995 it would be good to hear from you.

I tell my story here so not merely as an attempt to reach some closure on this painful episode, but hopefully to encourage other victims to tell their stories too.

Addendum: Another victim has chosen to share their story of abuse at a music school, which can be read on Slipped Disc here.