Note: I wrote this in the summer of 2019 when I had just turned 28. I don't think I've shown it to more than a couple of people since then. I thought I'd probably never share it, but PASIC '24 revealed to me that my silence has allowed [Founder 1] to control the narrative regarding these events---and me---for way too long.
I'm also really tired of dodging/answering questions about what happened six years ago. If any camp participants or interns object to me sharing this extremely long (yet still non-exhaustive) account, please reach out. These are mostly your stories (though I experienced most of them right alongside you). Your autonomy over them and your privacy still matter so much to me.
Dear [Founder 1],
I’m not writing this to get you cancelled. I’m not writing this for personal gain. I’m not writing this to hurt you even though you have hurt me and many others. Honestly, if those were my motivations, this would be a lot easier. Writing from a place of hatred is easy; just check Yelp. Writing from a place of love is infinitely harder.
I’m writing this because I’ve seen the good in you, and I promise not to forget it (no matter how much I’d like to). Even after the hell you put us through last month, I’m still not someone who can easily throw other people away. I still believe in your progression and in your desire to progress. I’m not writing to convince people to give up on you; I’m writing to convince you to believe in yourself. I think we both know you’re better than this. I hope you know that everything I’m about to say comes from a place of love and concern, not malice. And yeah, there’s pain, too. I won’t deny that. Believe me, if I could leave out the pain, I would.
There’s another level to this. The extremely important level where it’s not about you at all. It’s about the 50 students who will sign up to spend a week in close quarters with you next year. It’s about the 10+ artists who you’ll invite to teach at your next camp. It’s about every young player who meets you and instantly looks up to you because you show them all of the good and none of the bad… until it’s far too late for them to back out. It’s about anyone who will work closely with you in the future because I can’t anymore. I won’t. And I think people should know the reasons why. I think this is one of the last ways I can help you, [Founder 1]. I really do.
I’m only going to dwell on the stuff that matters. I don’t care about your inability to stick to a schedule or your reluctance to share even an overview of the [Camp] with artists, let alone participants and parents. I don’t understand your inability to even faintly consider logistics before spontaneously veering 90 degrees from your original trajectory, but I accept it. It’s disorganized to the point of incompetence, but I accept it. (I mean, come on, dude. You taught at [University]’s keyboard camp this year, just days before [Camp]. I’m willing to bet they sent you some type of schedule beforehand and that they more or less stuck to it during the week. It’s not hard, and many festivals have been doing it successfully for a long time. Please join them.)
Anyway, you know that scheduling and logistics are weaknesses of yours; that’s why you created the logistics position for me. So once you figure out how to trust the person you put in that position, and once you realize that you can save your great mid-camp ideas for next year rather than demanding that we all jump to implement them within the next 24 hours, then you’ll be fine on the organizational front. Honestly, there’s a million ways to solve your many logistical problems, so let’s set them aside. I want to talk about stuff that matters a lot more: the participants and how you treat them.
We’re going to start with the easy, obvious stuff that everyone needs to know before they send their kids off to you.
Number one: in its current state, your camp is not prepared to accommodate students with disabilities. Not only that, but your camp does not even collect information about its participants’ disabilities. We didn’t ask if anyone needed any extra accommodations, [Founder 1]. We didn’t even ask. It’s actually a really big deal.
One participant missed out on probably a third or more of the [Camp] experience because the distance between the dorms and the music building was too great for them to walk successfully and safely every day. We were not equipped to help this person like we should have been because we were not fully aware of what accommodating them even meant. By the way, all of those schedule changes and logistics considerations I mentioned before? They supremely hindered this person’s ability to enjoy the camp. Short notice schedule changes might be nothing more than a nuisance to able-bodied people, but for people with certain disabilities, a routine---or at least advance notice of changes to a routine---is extremely important.
This participant has stated to me multiple times that the main problem they had was that they did not have sufficient access to anyone who could accommodate their needs. They should have had access to me and the interns, but they saw that we were being pulled in too many different directions at a time to meet even basic needs, let alone anything extra. It created problems.
The participant I mentioned just now was the only person whose disabilities we actually knew about in advance. Do you know how we knew about them? Because I was friends with this person on Instagram and they had mentioned it on their profile. Therefore, when they applied for the internship, we discussed for maybe two or three minutes what kinds of accommodations they would need. I felt secure telling this person months ago that we could certainly provide rides to and from various sites in a timely manner. Because of how you ran your camp this year, we were unable to provide even that basic accommodation.
More students with disabilities/health concerns came forward as the week went on. We tried our best to accommodate them. We failed them. If no one else will say it, I will. A participant should not have to rely on asking a general camp group chat for help with obtaining their meals, moving their equipment, and/or getting to the next camp activity. Our participants with disabilities had to do that all week long. We weren’t ready for them. You need to be next year.
To be honest, we didn’t even have Aleve or Tums or Ibuprofen on hand for participants or staff who needed that. We didn’t have parental permission to give students those kinds of things if they needed them either because the only medical information we gathered was a copy of every participants’ insurance card. They live with us for a week, [Founder 1]. We need to cover our bases.
Number two: your camp is not inclusive enough of transgender or especially gender non-binary students. We were lucky enough to have one openly transmasculine participant register for and attend [Camp] ’19. This person was extremely enthusiastic about coming to [Camp] and I spoke with them often in the days leading up to the camp via Instagram. Again, this person had applied for the internship, so I notified you and [Founder 2] months in advance that this person uses they/their/them pronouns, accepts masculine pronouns, but detests feminine ones. I remember [Founder 2] thanking me for letting you guys know. There was just silence from you.
This person came to our camp excited about [Camp] for its promises of professional development and because of our claims of valuing inclusivity and diversity. They left carrying the weight of their interactions with you---interactions wherein you misgendered them multiple times, all but dismissed that you had done so, told them that “they” doesn’t make sense as a singular pronoun, and excused yourself because they look, to you, “very feminine.” [Founder 1], you said some of the worst things you can say to a transmasculine person, and you said them to a participant who had politely pulled you aside one on one to help educate you.
I understand that you have since apologized for these interactions. I understand that you are now using their correct pronouns. I understand that this is a learning process. But I also understand that there are a lot of things we could have done to better prepare for trans participants, and I would like to urge the entire percussion community to take note of that and to learn from our mistakes. It is 2019. We cannot claim to be an inclusive community unless we take steps to actually include marginalized people.
Let’s have mandatory sensitivity training for the founders and staff. Let’s offer it to the artists who might be new to this, too. Let’s actually talk about how we’ll handle housing arrangements to ensure that our trans participants feel safe and that every participant feels comfortable. Let’s have hard conversations about our own biases and misconceptions so that we can grow and actually be the inclusive institution we claim to be. It’s not inclusive if it’s only working for binary people or trans people who “pass.”
You are the co-founder of a camp. You don’t get to learn on the job when it comes to respecting a participant’s identity, especially when they’re paying you with their time, money, and preparation in exchange for a meaningful percussion experience. You have to put the work in during the off season. You have to find out what you don’t know and learn it. You are more than capable of this. But you didn’t do it this year, so I really hope you’ll do it by next summer.
At this point, I have to apologize to the percussion community myself. I could have done more with this. There were signs before this summer that [Camp] wasn’t going to be as inclusive of gender nonbinary people as it should be (in my opinion). When [Founder 1] wanted to issue a call for more female composers to enter [Camp]’s 2019 composition contest, he asked me to write up some copy for a caption on social media. In my initial draft, I wrote that it was a call for “women and gender nonbinary composers” because I just assumed that [Camp], of all institutions, would make true inclusivity a priority.
Your response, [Founder 1], was something I only read, so it’s impossible for me to know if you meant for it to come off as coldly as it did. All you said was “I don’t remember saying anything about gender nonbinary people.”
I was shocked by your wording but not entirely by your sentiments. I said that we could either take the baby steps approach or we could just get straight to full-fledged gender inclusivity. I remember you said that Spectrum Ensemble was already “taking care of those people,” and you specifically wanted to use your platform to promote women.
I said that I felt more than one institution could be and should be truly inclusive but that ultimately it was your camp. I took out the “gender nonbinary” part of what I’d written, and I disliked myself for doing it.
I later learned secondhand that you felt “attacked” during that interaction. I’m not sure why, as I chose my words carefully and said that I would respect your choice of the “one thing at a time” approach even though it wasn’t the approach I would choose.
So I’m sorry, non-binary percussionists. I know you exist, and I’m sorry that I didn’t fight for you or use that conversation to say, “Hey, [Founder 1], we’ll probably have trans and non-binary people sign up for your camp eventually. Can we talk about how to make them feel welcome and safe?” I should have done it, and I didn’t. I’m deeply sorry.
Back to you, [Founder 1]: that was my first glimpse of your transphobia or at least your ignorance about the subject. And I should have said something then, but I didn’t. Because it was a hard subject and I thought you were already mad at me.
Fast forward a few months to you misgendering a trans person repeatedly, questioning their pronouns, and triggering their gender dysphoria at your own camp. Add that to us all failing to accommodate this person’s disabilities. I really wish I’d sucked it up and had more difficult discussions with you before the camp. That’s why I’m doing it now. I hope anyone who runs a camp will ask themselves these questions if they haven’t already. Or else let’s stop saying that these opportunities are open to anyone who wants to come.
Believe it or not, I spent the first two thousand words on the easier stuff to talk about. Here comes the hard stuff.
[Founder 1]. You need to stop bullying participants. I’ve been watching you do this for two years now, and I can only use shock as an excuse for so long before I have to actually do something about it. I don’t even know if you realize that you’re doing it, but you are. Stop bullying these young people.
It’s not everybody. You usually inspire. But that’s what makes it so devastating to these students when you suddenly turn on them. I think this will be the hardest thing for you to accept, if you read this letter. And I have to remind you again: I have seen the good in you. I have seen you make young players’ dreams come true by showcasing their talents and letting them know that you see great potential in them. I have watched you do that. I think that’s the real you. But something’s up. I don’t know what. And I can’t keep watching you hurt people just because (I think) you’re hurting deep down yourself.
One of your targets is a person who has come to [Camp] twice now. Meaning, this person has supported your institution twice. This person could probably attend just about any camp anywhere, but he has chosen to invest his time and energy into yours repeatedly. That means something (or at least it should).
Last year, when I was just a participant, I overheard remarks where you criticized his playing in front of a large ensemble. If it had been constructive criticism delivered kindly, it’d be one thing. But it wasn’t. You invented an issue with this boy’s technique where there was none. I teach too, you know. This young man has a lot to learn, but it wasn’t okay for the founder of a festival to invent a technique issue where there was none and then publicly call out a teenager for it as casually as you did. You’re aware that you’re a hero to these kids, right?
Other times you singled him out during camp-wide clinics and meetings, and he was left completely shocked and embarrassed. And because he’s such a good natured kid, he let it roll off his shoulders each time. He has reached out to me on social media a couple times to ask if I think you dislike him. Before this year’s camp, I would reassure him that he was a good player and a good person and that you were probably just stressed out.
But then this year, I watched you do the same thing. He’s a year older and has made even more progress, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough to you. And you made it personal. Publicly. You asked a female friend of his if he was bothering her. You did this spontaneously in front of me, the interns, and one other participant even though it most definitely should have been a one on one conversation if your concern was real. You insinuated that he was following her around, that he clearly had a crush on her, and that he had done the same thing to a different female participant last year. I heard you use the word “creepy.”
When this girl reassured you that she and the boy were friends, you said, “Well, if your feelings change and you become the least bit uncomfortable, let me or Amanda know. Because I’d love to have a talk with him.” Then you walked away.
Another intern called the girl over to talk about what had just happened. The girl reassured us that she and the boy are just good friends and that he has never made her uncomfortable. I mentioned that this boy has had the same long-term girlfriend since before [Camp] ’18, and the girl said she knew and that he talks about his girlfriend all the time.
I told the girl that of course I’d want to know if anyone at the camp made her uncomfortable, even if it was a sweet kid who was a good player and seemed loyal to his girlfriend. She said, “Oh, you would be the first person I’d tell.” We asked if she had discussed this situation with you before or if it was something you’d just kind of come up with yourself, and she said that it was the latter. What gives, [Founder 1]?
I also know the participant you said this boy was “following around” last year, and she also disagrees with your analysis of this boy and his actions. How is it possible that in one breath, you will tell our only male intern not to be alone with female participants for fear of rumors starting that he’s acting predatory, and then in the next breath, you’ll start those rumors about a teenage boy yourself?
That’s one boy. There were others you hurt this week. I’ve seen the pattern. You meet them at a day of percussion or at a performance or some similar event. You’re kind and friendly and downright inspirational. You invite them to your camp. They’re excited to go because the founder wants them there. And then you turn on them. You’re cold to them, you roll your eyes at them, you make them feel stupid. They come to me and tell me these things, [Founder 1]. And sometimes it’s just a vibe you give them. But other times, it’s specific remarks and actions.
People sometimes call this tough love or justify it as a quirk of yours. “Oh, that’s [Founder 1]. He doesn’t bullshit.”
Bullshit. Bullying teenagers and young adults is bullshit. Saying, “Oh, that’s how he is/my teacher is back home. It just takes a while to get used to it” is bullshit. Expecting people to learn your weird personality quirks in one week and to shut up about how it makes them feel? That’s bullshit, [Founder 1]. And it’s not who you want to be. I know it’s not. You want to inspire. You’re good at it. So cut the bullshit and just do what you’re good at. You suck as the “tough love” guy. It comes across as all tough and no love. I know because I had different participants come to my dorm crying nearly every night of your camp. It’s not normal.
I also know because you hurt me personally at [Camp] ‘18, although you did it in a different way. You should know that I never planned on telling anybody about this, but after last month, I feel like it’s wrong for me to keep protecting you by hiding it.
Thursday night of [Camp] ’18, we were at [Club] to watch you and some of the other artists perform. You’d been drinking, but I didn’t know how much (and I really shouldn’t have to think about it, should I?). I was sitting at the sushi bar, eating and chatting with another participant when I suddenly felt your arms around me---you were hugging me from behind. I turned to look at you and felt your lips hot on my cheekbone. You kissed me on my face in a bar in a strange city with other participants watching.
My blood ran cold, [Founder 1]. “Who saw that? Why did he do that? I don’t kiss any of my friends. How much has he been drinking? Why did he invite me to [Camp]? This guy is married. I’m married.* We’ve never done that.”
This was after you’d told me that if you were into skinny white girls, I’d be your girl. I know you meant that as a playful compliment, but did you know that I don’t need compliments like that from you? I think some guys don’t know that. Let me state it clearly: I don’t care what you think about how I look. Try complimenting my playing next time because that’s the activity we have in common. That’s the reason I came to Florida.
The kiss was also before you made explicit sexual comments to some of the male participants about two Asian women in the bar whom you’d found attractive. I think you were only talking to some of the college-aged participants, but still, [Founder 1]. You’re a founder. They felt weird.
You’ve said worse things to me (though thankfully not about me) over the past couple years, [Founder 1]. But I know your wife and daughters. And I believe you when you say you want to love and honor them. So I’ll not get into specifics.
I’m asking you to check yourself. Your behavior is unacceptable. Especially when you’ve been drinking. Especially at [Club].
So why did I go back to [Camp] this year? Why did I accept the logistics position? I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately. It has to do with what happened when I told [Founder 2] that you’d kissed me on the side of my face.
I told him and he was shocked. I told him that I was probably crying because of my own personal history, which you could not have known about when you did what you did, but that you still probably shouldn’t kiss participants, especially when you’d been drinking any amount. I never said you were drunk… I just said I didn’t know how much you’d had. I said it was a good thing that I was 26 and had met you before [Camp] because another participant might not have known you were a good guy.
Do you remember your reaction when you found out I’d spoken to [Founder 2]? You were upset with me for not going to you. You said you understood why I went to [Founder 2], and you said you had overstepped, but you were still upset that I didn’t go to you. You told me that we were good enough friends by then that I should feel comfortable talking directly to you. You said you were committed to your wife and kids and religion and that you wanted to be better and honor those people every day.
I believed you. So when you offered the logistics position, I took it. I thought, “Well, I guess it was just a kiss, and I guess we have this great friendship. And I guess this person sees value in what I can bring to his camp, and if he’s willing to put what happened behind us, then I guess I can, too.”
That’s why I went to PASIC (2018) and worked your booth nonstop. I talked up your camp. I talked up you and the other faculty. I worked hard to help spread the word about [Camp]. I stayed silent when you grabbed a mutual male friend by the face and kissed him on his cheek in front of your gala attendees. I didn’t say anything when you whispered to me later, “Pretty sure I kissed him with more tongue than I did you” even though that wasn’t my definition of putting the past behind us.
I think I took the position because I thought I could protect students from the bad parts of you and [Club] Night if I was there.
I was wrong.
This is the last and most important thing I want to talk about: [Club] will never be a safe venue for your camp.
[Club] is a bar about a mile away from the campus that hosts [Camp]. Participants walk over in a large group, supervised by the interns and myself. We walk over at around 8:15pm. In June, it’s still daylight. It seems safe enough. It feels weird to be walking kids as young as 11 or 12 to a bar, but it’s important to you, [Founder 1], that as many campers get to this performance as possible because let’s be honest: it’s your big night. It’s the night you perform with the other jazz legends on faculty. It’s the night you let loose. It’s the night you confess to the camp that while the participants think this experience is for them, it’s actually all for you (and by the way, that joke---if it is one---landed a lot better last year).
It’s a captive audience.
But while you can justify the walk over, no one can justify the venue itself. A bar is a bar. I used to ignore my instincts regarding [Club]. I figured I probably didn’t like having the concert at a bar because my years in Utah had made me kind of prudish. But I found out that other participants find it similarly uncomfortable there.
Participants have pointed out to me that it’s probably weird for the younger teens to see their percussion heroes getting drunk---sometimes sloppy drunk. Participants who drank underage themselves later told me that it had been easy for them to procure alcoholic beverages at [Club] and that therefore they didn’t think it was a good setting for a camp activity. I didn’t see them drinking myself because I was outside comforting participants who told me they were too uncomfortable in the venue and/or around you when you were drinking. I hadn’t said anything about what happened to me last year to those students; I just told the ones who requested that I stay by their side all night that I would do so.
Participants told me they were uncomfortable seeing your toddler asleep on a couch in the back of the bar all night (for the second year in a row). Many of them think that no one under 16, 17, or maybe even 18 should be allowed to go to [Club]. Some think you should be able to nurse a drink or maybe two, but a surprising amount wish you just wouldn’t drink at all while you’re there.
You also can’t justify the walk back from [Club]. People under 18 were told to walk back to the dorms at 11:00pm. I told this group, “Look. This is a very different walk than the walk over here even though it’s the same route. You need to be in an even tighter group, you must not let anyone out of your sight, and you need to look out for the younger kids especially.” They were still supervised by an intern or two, but the full team couldn’t go because there were still participants at the bar. Maybe the speech seems like overkill, but as I told the kids, “I’m extra paranoid from growing up in Vegas, but it usually keeps people safe.”
Later I asked some participants if they thought bussing the kids in instead of walking them over would help things ([Founder 2] has already committed to getting a bus for next year), and they said, “Well, kinda. But it’s still a bar.” There are still plenty of belligerent drunks everywhere by the time the first student group leaves. And it only gets worse as the night goes on. You can protect them from the walk over by getting a bus, but then they still have to get into and out of a totally inappropriate venue.
For the people who don’t see the walk over and back as a problem, I want to talk about what happened after the [Club] performance this year [2019].
Immediately after walking the last group of students (as far as I knew) back to the dorms (we arrived after 1:30am), I realized I’d left my bag at [Club]. I asked an intern if I could borrow his car to go get my bag. I had zero drinks, so I was more than fine to drive. Since it was now extremely late at night, he and an older participant offered to go with me. We essentially left the dorms as soon as we had reached them to head back to [Club] one last time.
I retrieved my bag from [Club] and began driving back to the dorms the way we’d come---taking the same route we’d used multiple times throughout the night. A few seconds after we got through the intersection of Hibiscus and Quadrille, the three of us heard an accident immediately behind us and realized a drunk driver had just driven straight into the train tracks there. I immediately made a U-turn and drove back to the site of the accident. We attempted to tell the man behind the wheel to stop trying to maneuver the car off the tracks. I was already dialing 911 (at exactly 2:01am) when my friends and I realized that the accident had resulted in a human fatality.
What we witnessed was horrible. What made it all the worse was the realization that if our participants had been walking back 20 minutes later, or if this driver had shown up 20 minutes earlier, the human fatality could have easily been one or more of our campers.
In fact, the last participant (well over 18 years old) walked by that intersection alone at 2:30am. He didn’t see the body, but he saw the police cars. He had no clue that a few of us were there telling the cops what we could about what we’d seen. When he told me he’d walked by the accident, I felt sick to my stomach thinking that if he’d left [Club] a bit sooner, he could have been involved himself. And by the way, it’s completely stupid that he was allowed to walk back to the dorms alone at 2:30am.
[Founder 1]. You told me that we were friends. You told me I should come to you directly if I have a problem with you because we are such good friends. But when this car crash happened, you said nothing to me or to anyone. When the logistics team could not work the next day because of shock and grief, you told the camp nothing. We asked [Founder 2] to please tell the participants that there had been an accident, that we had witnessed it, and that it had kept us up very late. Anything so that they wouldn’t think their logistics team was just abandoning them.
You guys told them nothing.
They thought we stopped working because we were tired of putting in 20 hour days. They thought we quit working because you were cruel to us all week. They thought we were on strike. They thought maybe we’d been sent home. I know because they all messaged me saying as much.
The cover up is the one thing I can’t forgive personally. I understand hiding gory details from minors, especially because the accident wasn’t a normal accident. Alcohol was involved. A person died a gruesome death. The two guys who were with me saw the body very close up and shoved me away from it. The driver had tried to flee the scene. I had to call in the accident while he yelled at me and the two bystanders who held him down. It was traumatic. I understand not sharing all the details.
But why not let them know something happened? Why let them think that the interns and I just abandoned them? We had specifically asked [Founder 2] to let them know that we’d still be working if we could bear it, but instead they were told nothing. What did they think when they saw us burst into tears every time a cop car passed or whenever we had to pass train tracks? Do you think they felt safe in our care for the rest of the week?
Is it because the parents might get pissed? Because you had let their students walk by the site within a half hour of it happening? Because it isn’t so far-fetched to think that it could have been one of their kids who got hurt or saw something unforgettable? Is it a cover up to save your own skin?
I don’t really know if we’re friends, [Founder 1]. You told me Saturday afternoon that you hadn’t said anything because you didn’t know what to say. I don’t think anybody knew what to say, [Founder 1], but they still hugged me and said something.
But you.
My friend?
The one I shouldn’t be afraid to talk to?
The reason I was where I was when it happened?
Despite what you’d done the year before?
I got nothing from you. You dropped a hotline into a group message half a day later.
Some friend.
When I say that you’re hurting young people who look up to you by singling them out and making them feel awkward or uncomfortable or by putting them into situations that can be dangerous, I know it firsthand. Because I’m one of those young people.
When I say that your camp was wonderful for some people and devastating for others, it should matter, because I’m one of the ones who was devastated. And I’m one of the ones who tried to make it wonderful.
Again, I think you’re probably going through something. When the campers asked me how you could act the way you acted at [Camp] this year---showing up 20+ minutes late for events you orchestrated, leaving early, acting rude and dismissive, and behaving erratically---I told them that I thought you must be going through something tough. If they’ve known you longer than I have, I asked them, “Do you think [Founder 1] is happy? Is the [Founder 1] you know now the same one from a few years ago?”
I only met you face to face in February of 2018. We’ve spent the total of a few weeks together in person. I don’t have a lot to go off here. But I do know that the people who hurt others are usually hurting, too.
But I personally can’t be there for you anymore. And I can’t just let all of this go by without saying something. I can’t let you have a spotless record. Your faculty came together, your participants came together, and they put on one hell of a final concert without much help from the logistics team or you. They pulled it off. That’s amazing.
But this year, your camp was successful in spite of you. You made people uncomfortable. You hurt people. You bullied them. You threatened the career of a young person while drinking. You alienated already marginalized people. You made demands that resulted in 20-hour work days for your logistics team, and then you told people it was our fault. We skipped meals. We held people while they cried every day. I cried in front of professionals I’d never met, who I respect so much. Your artists became patron saints and therapists, and they shouldn’t have to be either, especially when you weren’t treating half of them well either. And because they’re too professional and they’re hoping to work at other camps, they’re not in a position to speak out.
But I am.
Because I don’t care about fame or prestige or status or money. I don’t care if this is half open letter, half career suicide note. I only care about people.
And I care about you.
I don’t know what you’re going through right now. I’ve heard rumors, but they’re just rumors. But I think you’re going through a really hard time. I told [Founder 2] this, too. You’re going through something that’s beating you up. I can see it, and I haven’t known you that long.
I hope you get through it. I believe that you can.
But you have become so toxic in my life. I can’t keep letting you talk your way out of consequences for your own misdeeds. I can’t watch you lie to campers. You’ve already begun to drag my name through the mud. You’ve already begun to place blame. People have told me. You know what? Go ahead and get mad. You can hate me. I don’t care.
Because everything I’ve done for [Camp], I’ve done to help you and our percussion community. Including this. So my conscience is clear. I’ll sound the alarm, and if people decide not to listen, that’s up to them. But at least I’ll have said something.
You are someone I will have to care about from very far away. I hope that you can work through whatever has turned you into this person I no longer recognize. But please stop hurting young people while you work through it.
I left Florida with trauma from that car crash. I left Florida in worse physical and emotional condition than I have experienced in a long, long time. I left feeling like a failure because so many people had come with high expectations I’d helped you build, and some of them left feeling terrible.
But I left in a better position than last year. Because I’m not enabling you anymore.
Good luck, [Founder 1]. I hope you get through whatever is hurting you. I hope that the percussion community gives you lots of support and love while you work through whatever it is you’re dealing with. Life is really hard. You can come back from anything though. I wish I could be there for you, but I can’t. Maybe someday.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “this girl is blowing a lot of little things out of proportion,” know that there are many more stories, and it all adds up, and remember that you weren’t there when these student musicians’ hearts were broken. Sure, they’ll heal with time, but they didn’t have to break in the first place. Nobody signed up for that.
I’m not interested in waiting for a bad situation to get even worse before saying something. If more people looked for warning signs and spoke up before the stakes got sky high, our world would be a better place. Fewer individuals would crash and burn the way I’m worried you will if you don’t make changes.
Even now, I wish I could just not publish this. If I were only thinking of you, [Founder 1], then I wouldn’t send it to anyone but you. But when I think about the next 65 people who will try to spend a week with you, I know that I have to share this. When I think about how many times I have tried to talk to [Founder 2], resulting in no changes because he loves and believes in you too much to stop you, I know this is something I have to do and that this is the way I have to do it. And if other percussionists looking for guidance and amazing experiences benefit from me sharing the hard stuff that happened at [Camp] 2019, then it’s worth it. I’m sorry if it hurts you, but I think it will help you and everyone else in the long run.
It’s lonely out here. I hope someone gets the message.
Best,
Amanda
*I'm not married anymore. My ex is still a good friend though, and he has of course never held [Founder 1]'s actions against me.