Summary of my Involvement in the Calgary Philharmonic Investigation on Oboist Alex Klein

The Washington Post published a new piece this past Sunday about oboist Katherine Needleman. The article briefly touches on oboist Alex Klein’s dismissal from the Calgary Philharmonic, but barely covers the tip of the iceberg.

After his firing, Alex was diagnosed with autism and is now allegedly asserting that he was the target of discrimination based on disability.

Since I was involved in the Calgary Philharmonic investigation and was the person who received his original email that led to the inquiry, I’d like to share the full message Alex sent me.

I’m sharing this not to condemn him, but to provide context and clarity—specifically regarding what he wrote about the DePaul students who tried to report him, and about Katherine Needleman — in his own words.

It’s best to read what he wrote in his own words. All the emails are in my original article titled, “Why I left the Seattle Symphony, Spoke Up About Alex Klein, and Supported the Calgary Philharmonic Investigation.” Here is the link to my article, including a summary of facts farther below to help with the lengthy context:

https://www.harpsichord-hotsauce.com/post/standing-up-for-integrity-in-classical-music-why-i-left-the-seattle-symphony-spoke-up-about-alex Washington Post Article published this past Sunday: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/10/19/she-spurned-concertmasters-advance-now-shes-classical-musics-metoo-vigilante/

Statement of Facts Regarding Alex Klein, the Calgary Philharmonic Investigation, and My Involvement:

1. In 2023, I contacted oboist Alex Klein via email. My message was brief and related solely to a focal hand dystonia researcher who was trying to reach him. His reply to me was unexpected and unrelated to the topic I had written about. Instead, he sent a lengthy email containing defamatory statements about colleagues, former students, and myself. The content of his response was unsolicited and entirely outside the scope of my outreach.

2. In his reply, Alex Klein detailed accusations against two of his former students: student #1 and student #2 (names redacted in my public writing for privacy). He claimed that #1 had fabricated an affair and shared altered screenshots online to make it look legitimate, and that #2, his former student who he hired on as a teaching assistant, tried to report him on #1 student’s behalf.

3. Alex stated that when #2 confronted him, he threatened to report her to the Dean of DePaul University for being racist and attempting to get a minority professor fired. He stated that she resigned from her TA position and left DePaul soon after.

4. He also falsely accused me of interacting online with student #1, specifically claiming I liked or commented in support on one of her posts (when I did not know the student and never have seen their name before. I also did not know student #2). I asked him twice for screenshots or any proof of me interacting with student #1 post, which he could not provide. He said he had saved them somewhere but failed to produce them.

5. In the same email, Alex made several misogynistic and defamatory remarks about oboist Katherine Needleman. He accused her of racism, disparaged her professional qualifications, and made crude insinuations about how she obtained her position. He used degrading terms including “queen of filth”.

6. Katherine later shared a redacted excerpt of the email on Facebook (specifically just the section of the email defaming her). She did not name Alex Klein but simply noted that someone had attempted to discourage a “young lady” from following her work. Due to a reference to focal dystonia in the email text, many inferred that Alex was the author.

7. After Katherine’s post gained traction, Alex emailed her claiming he did not write the message to me and instead alleged that clarinetists Brent Hages and Slavko Popovic were responsible. He sent her screenshots of them speaking about her in derogatory terms and claimed they had hacked his email account.

8. Katherine and I did not find this explanation credible. The style and tone of the original email clearly matched Alex’s voice, and the email came directly from his personal account and IP address to my work email address in response to my reply email. The screenshot messages he forwarded to Katherine of Brent and Slavko degrading her are clearly from a social media inbox/app conversation (with the colored squares highlighting each person's message), and the messages Alex sent to me about Katherine and his students were over email.

9. I was contacted by Mark Stevens, CEO of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and by an external investigator hired to conduct a formal investigation into Alex Klein’s conduct. They asked me to participate based on the information I had received.

10. Initially, I hesitated to get involved due to a sense of loyalty to Alex. However, I was privately contacted by some Calgary Philharmonic musicians who urged me to help. Several indicated that Alex had previously been the subject of internal complaints for racist and inappropriate comments, including sexual remarks made to at least one female colleague, and that he had undergone disciplinary training in the past.

11. I agreed to cooperate with the investigation and was formally interviewed by the external investigator. I provided the original email Alex sent me and shared a factual account of my experience, including dates, times, etc.

12. At the conclusion of the investigation, the Calgary Philharmonic terminated both Alex Klein and Slavko Popovic. Alex Klein was also removed from DePaul’s faculty listing online for unknown reasons.

13. Following my cooperation in the investigation, I was issued a final warning and an unpaid suspension by my then-employer, the Seattle Symphony. Their stated reason was that the email Alex sent had been delivered to my official work address, and that sharing or retaining it could present legal risk to the organization. They cited a violation of SSO’s digital policy, despite the fact that I did not solicit the content of the email and had shared it only in the context of a formal misconduct investigation.

14. I viewed the disciplinary action as retaliatory. I had not invited or provoked the email’s contents, and I cooperated in an external inquiry intended to protect musicians from harm. Ultimately, I made the difficult decision to resign from my position at SSO.

15. Several months later, I published an article titled “Standing Up for Integrity in Classical Music — Why I Left the Seattle Symphony, Spoke Up About Alex Klein, and Supported the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Investigation.”

In it, I provided screenshots of public comments made by Alex’s former students regarding his boundary violations and stated about his support for teacher-student relationships.

16. In the article, I do not disclose student #1 or #2 full names. I later was able to find #1 contact information and spoke directly with #1 who stated to me that the affair she had spoken of was real and confirmed that the information she previously shared was true. I also tried to get in touch with #2.

17. I noted in my article that after I left the SSO, a number of staff and musicians (past and present) reached out to me who had been terminated. A disproportionate amount of people of color and women had been allegedly let go without clear cause or justification, raising concerns about systemic inequity and silence within the institution. I also provided a screenshot of an unemployment claim a former staff member sent me.

18. After my article was published, many former students of Alex have publicly stated in comments about their experiences they had with Alex or “knowing” of his behavior, which I added screenshots of in the article too.

19. Around the time of my article’s publication, the Seattle Symphony’s CEO, Krishna Thiagarajan announced his resignation.

A former colleague contacted me and informed me that the former Chief Diversity Officer/Vice President of HR “People & Culture” (my former department), Dr. Paul Johnson resigned.

They also stated that the Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operations Officer, Cheronne Wong resigned too.

The VP of Marketing made a statement in the Seattle Times shortly after, mentioning that Paul and Cheronne were on a leave of absence.

Several months later, their names were completely removed from the SSO administration section online for unknown reasons. Then in September 2025, Christy Wood, the VP of Marketing, resigned for unknown reasons.” (c) 2025, Katie A. Berglof