James Zimmermann

And then if you survive that year long probationary period, you get tenure and you can be in the orchestra for the rest of your life.

So that's where I thought I was going to end up.

in Nashville Symphony for the rest of my career.

But I was ousted in 2020 by a ridiculous DEI agenda.

We can get into that later.

But suffice it to say, I've been on the sidelines working in big tech since 2020 and continuing my career as a studio musician.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I experienced that same thing where my mistakes and infractions have been my defining characteristics to those who would like to see me out of the business.

I've tried to apologize, but there's no truce available.

So I'll tell you what happened very briefly.

Blind auditions were working great.

Wait, wait, wait.

So there was a large effort following Trump's first election to diversify the Nashville Symphony, which is difficult when you hire musicians through blind auditions.

So sometimes an orchestra has to fill a role temporarily without a blind audition.

So the orchestra would hire people of color for most of those positions.

It's an easy way to diversify.

And they put a black man into the principal oboe chair, which is the most influential and important chair in the orchestra.

And this guy had an agenda and he was starting to form, you know, he was advocating for diversity lunch type things, trainings, struggle session type behavior, which I pushed back on.

Pretty staunchly, but the real thing blew up when this player who was on a temporary contract had to audition in a blind audition for the permanent position against a national pool of candidates.

in 2019.