Leipzig Bachfest Keeps Gardiner on the Schedule, Despite...

Despite an ongoing criminal investigation of allegations that Sir John Eliot Gardiner behaved inappropriately towards a female staff member at this year’s Bachfest Leipzig, the board of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig announced on Aug. 27 that the conductor will remain on the 2027 program.

The decision comes after independent criminal-law, employment-law, and psychological evaluations found that video evidence failed to discover any criminal liability or culpable conduct. At the same time, a psychological assessment determined that the incident could be seen as violating the personal boundaries of the employee, whose experience should be taken seriously.

The Bach-Archiv Leipzig’s decision—that the evidence is insufficient to justify cancelling the long-planned June 20, 2027 performance of Bach’s “Mass” in B minor at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche—seems somewhat cynical, given its simultaneous announcements that it will plan no further collaborations with Gardiner after 2027. It has also said that it reserves the right to reconsider the conductor’s involvement next year should additional evidence emerge.

The incident, while it may fail to rise to the level of criminality, fits a years-long pattern of abusive behavior by the 83-year-old Gardiner that first gained widespread public attention in August of 2023 after he struck a vocalist at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André, France. After stepping back from conducting, he re-emerged to lead a new ensemble amid claims to have benefited from cognitive behavior therapy. The latest incident suggests that the efficacy of Gardiner’s therapy has been questionable at best.

Bachfest reports that it has implemented a new menu of safety measures, codes of conduct, and other safeguards and reporting procedures. It might add an addendum to these policies—something to the effect of not hiring a musical artist, no matter how talented, who is known in the profession to be a serial abuser.

VAN-magazine