Page 299 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

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“It’s a different sort of pressure,” says Gabriel Dyker, a former freelancer and now a
violinist in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: “Turn up, do the job safely
and hope to get called back. A lot of that is just trying not to stick out.”

Dr Christina Scharff, author of the monograph Gender, Subjectivity and Cultural Work:
The Classical Music Profession, relates blending in to the sociological idea of homophily
– the reproduction of sameness. That has obvious consequences for representation and
equality within the orchestral sector – especially when fears of disrupting that
“sameness” can create issues around the reporting of problems. A 2022 survey from the
Independent Society of Musicians showed that 87% of women working in the orchestral
sector reported experiencing discrimination, with 68% describing incidents of sexual
harassment. By contrast, levels of internal non-reporting among group performers
(including orchestral musicians) were among the highest of all the groups surveyed, at
80%.

Why is low reporting such a persistent problem? “Another potential industry-wide issue
in the past was very much this ‘them against us’, ‘managers against players’ issue,” says
Rimbault. A culture of not making a scene allows problems to fester. “We like to keep
the management out of the room and sort of keep things among ourselves,” Dyker says.

Sergiu Celibidache conducting in the Berlin Titania Palast, 1956. Photograph: ullstein bild/Getty
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After the Musicians’ Union’s 2022 findings showed almost half of musicians had
experienced sexual harassment at work, of which 85% of incidents went unreported, the
trade body launched their Safe Space Scheme, a reporting scheme for those
experiencing harassment. The aim is to empower from below, flattening some pre-
existing social hierarchies by giving freelance players and contracted players an equal
voice on specific pastoral issues. “Then, if the person on the lowest salary in the
orchestra – like me, the tutti second violin player – has that level of enfranchisement,
and feels that they’re as valued as a conductor, the principal, then you are only going to
feel more valued in your workplace,” Rimbault adds.

If there is a way to go regarding equality in the orchestra, then some will take solace in
the fact that the worst excesses of leaders like Tár are on their way out. “The film is