Eastern Music Festival Cancels Appearance by Author of Book About Sex and Drugs in Classical Music | Playbill

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Classic Arts News Eastern Music Festival Cancels Appearance by Author of Book About Sex and Drugs in Classical Music The Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, has canceled an appearance by former oboist Blair Tindall, author of a controversial book about orchestra life, the Greensboro News and Record reports.
Tindall had been invited to speak at the festival's training program for young musicians, but festival president Tom Philion said that "some of the material [in her book] might be inappropriate or confusing to a 14-year-old student."

Tindall in fact suggested to Philion that he cancel her appearance, after the Brevard Music Center Institute and Festival called off a talk she was scheduled to give.

Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music is Tindall's memoir of life as a freelance musician, and includes accounts of her own alleged affair with conductor Keith Lockhart as well as the sexual politics of orchestras and the widespread use of drugs and alcohol.

Lockhart, the conductor of the Boston Pops and the Utah Symphony, denies that he had an affair with Tindall.

"What I was trying to get across," Tindall told the News and Record, "I was trying to express what a tiny and incestuous world it can be," and noted, "I think we went overboard in marketing it as a sex, drugs, and classical music book."

Tindall has left music altogether and has become a journalist.

The festival, which started on June 25 and runs through July 31, includes appearances by conductor Gerard Schwarz, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, and pianist Peter Serkin.

 
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