An online petition calling on the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra to apologize to violinist Esther Hwang has gone viral. As of this writing, it has now garnered more than 10,000 signatures since it was launched a week ago by Baltimore Symphony Orchestra principal oboist Katherine Needleman.
As Pancouver has previously reported, the petition also demands that the VSO “publicly commit to immediately end its use and enforcement of any agreement that restricts people from speaking about harassment, discrimination, sexual misconduct, or abuse”. It came in the wake of a December 17 article in the Globe and Mail in which Hwang revealed the existence of a non-disclosure agreement with the VSO.
In this piece, Hwang alleged that she was raped and sexually assaulted by a senior member of the orchestra while working as a VSO violin extra in 2017 and 2018. The Juilliard School alumna has stated that the was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to receive a settlement of $7,138.34.
After accepting the settlement, Hwang saw her workload decline in the 2019-20 season. When the VSO resumed concerts in the post-COVID lockdown era, she was no longer called back as a violin extra. She alleged that this amounted to retaliation. That prompted the VSO to commission an external investigation by the law firm Southern Butler Price.
Needham has been a whistleblower in exposing sexual misconduct in the classical music world. Her Substack...
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