World-renowned Hungarian violinist accused of verbal abuse

At a rehearsal on 9 May, the Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra was playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. During the rehearsal, "for about an hour, András Keller kept yelling at one of our colleagues (a teacher at the Music Academy), instructing her in a degrading and abusive manner. For about half an hour, she continued to work while tears streamed down her face," Piroska Molnár states in the letter of complaint addressed to the Minister of Culture and Innovation János Csák, whose ministry is the orchestra's maintainer.

When recalling the incident to Telex, Piroska Molnár said that even after this, the conductor continued to use an unacceptable tone towards her colleague. András Keller told the violinist to stop bawling, since it was all just acting anyway.

Molnár remembers that at one point, the conductor shouted so loudly while they were playing that she became terrified and had to run out into the courtyard and take deep breaths to regain her composure. When she got back, the conductor started to berate her for walking out. The argument continued between them and at one point Molnár asked the conductor:

• “András, how are we supposed to work in this kind of an atmosphere?”
• "If it's not to your liking, feel free to leave!" – the conductor replied.

Piroska Molnár still acknowledges András Keller's artistic and professional merits, but she believes that no high-level artistic achievement justifies a conductor talking to his musicians in this manner and keeping them in constant fear. She later expressed this in her farewell letter to the orchestra as well.

We managed to reach the violinist who was publicly humiliated in front of her colleagues but she wasn’t willing to talk about the incident. We sent detailed written questions to the conductor, András Keller too, so that he could respond to the criticism about his leadership style. At first, Concerto Budapest's public relations officer replied that András Keller had "gone on holiday following a very busy season, so unfortunately, contacting him for a comment isn't possible".

We managed to obtain Keller's phone number, and were able to briefly speak with him. The conductor said that he believed the case was a "fabrication", and said that no complaint had been lodged against him by the violinist in question, with whom he has been working for 20 years.

An internationally renowned musician

When speaking about Keller, who is an internationally renowned violinist, everyone acknowledges his talent and artistic qualities. He has been the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Concerto Budapest since 2007. He has been awarded the Kossuth Prize, the Liszt Prize and the Bartók-Pásztory Prize. The Keller Quartet, which he founded in 1987, is widely recognized in the world of classical music. Since January 2016, András Keller has been a professor at one of the world's most prominent music institutions, the Guildhall Music School in London. His solo and chamber music recordings have won numerous prestigious international prizes and he is a regular guest artist at major festivals. In recent years, Concerto Budapest has been invited to several international festivals.

In a film about the orchestra, the viola player describes Keller as "the type of Master Yoda who believes that people can flourish and perform better under pressure or strain.”

A former member of the orchestra who had left a while ago, spoke about similar things to Telex. According to him, the conductor tends to create psychological and emotional storms in order to inspire the musicians, whereas a professional musician has no need for that.

In the above mentioned film,

Keller says that "one thing is important, and that is that I must never offend the musicians". He also states that he is always careful to instruct the soloists in such a way that they don't break under the pressure if something isn’t just right.

An investigation, its findings, and more

Following Molnár’s labour complaint against Keller to the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, an extraordinary investigation of the matter was ordered. The investigation was carried out by Gábor Devich, the managing director of the non-profit foundation that manages the orchestra, and the orchestra's economic director. This placed the musicians in an extremely vulnerable position, as they were supposed to report problems with their leader to their employer.

The results of the internal investigation were finalised by 5 July, and they concluded that there had been no verbal abuse by the conductor. Out of the 84-member orchestra, the managing director interviewed 52 musicians who had volunteered to participate, so the opinion of two thirds of the orchestra has been heard," reads the letter sent by the ministry to Piroska Molnár. According to the letter, only two musicians had expressed criticism of András Keller's work, while

"the vast majority of musicians found the allegations exaggerated and rejected the accusation of verbal abuse".

Molnár questions the claim that only two orchestra members expressed a negative opinion about Keller. For this reason, she collected statements and supportive emails of eleven artists or employees who had previously left Concerto for similar reasons and sent these to the ministry on 19 June.

In these letters, Keller is once again described as a "talented leader, who is incapable of normal communication". Many wrote about a toxic atmosphere and public humiliation in front of orchestra members. Others mentioned that "regular shouting, severe humiliation – and subsequent crying – as well as manipulative and blackmailing behaviour were common during rehearsals. Picking on employees who are for some reason not liked at that particular time, and humiliating them in front of the entire orchestra is a regular occurrence." Two of them also mentioned that

on one occasion, after a rehearsal, several musicians cried in the dressing room because of Keller's behaviour.

The tension wasn't just felt by the musicians, but also by those working behind the scenes. In their letter, a former employee with the orchestra also cited the toxic atmosphere as the main reason for resigning:

“Respect and appreciation for artistic greatness is no reason why anyone should have to endure the character flaws which he has for decades neglected to polish through self-improvement, while polishing the intonation on his violin.”

Another former employee wrote:

“I am not aware of a single orchestra or musical establishment where people are treated this way and where the finest musicians are subjected to the absolute authority of one [...] man to such an extent. I don't know of any conductor who would allow themselves to behave this way – in the long term.”

We wrote to the Ministry of Culture to ask about the fate of these letters and to what extent they had been taken into account in the investigation, but received no reply.

"All I want is to work without being humiliated, to carry out instructions given in a normal, humane tone, and to serve music and the Hungarian people...", Piroska Molnár wrote in her farewell letter to the members of the orchestra.

The above story is made more interesting by the fact that many believe that the Ministry of Culture and Innovation may have designed the recently published tender for the post of rector of Budapest's Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music with András Keller in mind. The prestigious institution itself strongly protested against this – not least because of the rumours circulating in classical music circles about András Keller's leadership style.

Following a public statement of protest by the Academy’s senate and 171 professors teaching at the institution, the tender was eventually withdrawn and a new call for applications was published. The new call, however, still lists expectations which exclude the candidate preferred for the post by the Academy, but fits Keller perfectly.