The orchestra management has issued a brutal demand to Michael Lam, 63, oboist and cor anglais player, to attend a reaudition or be dismissed without pension.
The orchestra’s MD, Ofer Amsalem, wrote to him that he had failed a probationary three months after music director, Julian Rachlin, criticised his playing. The only option now was to play an audition for his own job, as other players are having to do.
Lam says: ‘After Mr. Julian Rachlin expressed his dissatisfaction with my playing, I informed Mr. Amsalem that I did not intend to cause any problems, I only asked for a respectable retirement agreement. I am 63 years old, in a country where there is a war, the economic situation is not easy, I will not be able to find anywhere that would want to employ me until retirement, I have a family and children that I support and to go out now to the free market, for me it is a death blow.
‘The idea of giving me a trial period and a repeat audition was intended to make me leave voluntarily without a retirement agreement at all, it is not only humiliating, it is mainly inappropriate and disrespectful. (To everyone by the way).’
Disrespectful and humiliating sounds about right.
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