“Orchestras and opera companies are microcosms of our society and our world, and this is a representation of it,” said Deborah Borda, the president and chief executive of the New York Philharmonic, and the partner of Coralie Toevs, the Met’s development chief. It doesn’t help that the field is by its nature past-loving and has major centers in countries like Italy and Russia, where reactionary values still reign. As throughout society - business, politics, sports - music has struggled to produce and promote leaders outside of the traditional mold. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they decide to tell their stories publicly, which Lestock has done.Despite gay pioneers like Michael Tilson Thomas (at the San Francisco Symphony) and Marin Alsop (in Baltimore), conducting remains an overwhelmingly straight (and male, and white) profession. “The examples of instigating sex with a minor, physical abuse using physical pain leading to break down crying, all happened. “He is lying,” he said in an email to the Times. James Lestock, 67, who says he was abused by Levine as a 17-year-old cello student, issued a strongly worded statement in response to the conductor’s remarks. “My fervent hope is that in time people will come to understand the truth, and I will be able to continue my work with full concentration and inspiration.” “I have devoted my energies to the development, growth and nurturing of music and musicians all over the world - particularly with the Metropolitan Opera where my work has been the lifeblood and passion of my artistic imagination,” Levine said in the statement. The company has been naming replacements for his scheduled performances. Cleary, a partner at the Proskauer Rose law firm, to investigate the accusations against Levine as it weighs his future. The opera suspended Levine on Sunday after the Times published accounts from three accusers who say that Levine sexually abused them when they were teenagers.

“As anyone who truly knows me will attest, I have not lived my life as an oppressor or an aggressor.” Distroscale “As understandably troubling as the accusations noted in recent press accounts are, they are unfounded,” Levine said Thursday in a statement first published by The New York Times.

Conductor of metropolitan opera