Julian Wachner conducts the choir of Trinity Wall Road and the Bang on a Can All-Stars at Lincoln Heart in New York in 2014. Wachner, who was dismissed from his place at Trinity in 2022, has been charged with possession of kid intercourse abuse materials in Indiana.
Carolyn Cole/Getty Photographs
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Carolyn Cole/Getty Photographs
This report consists of mentions of sexual violence.
Julian Wachner, a conductor and composer who as soon as held jobs with a few of New York’s most revered establishments, has been charged in Indiana with possessing youngster sexual abuse materials and cocaine.
On Tuesday, prosecutors in Marion County, Ind., filed 11 felony costs towards him: 10 counts of possessing youngster sexual abuse materials depicting kids youthful than 12 years outdated, and a further rely of cocaine possession. Wachner has pleaded not responsible and posted a $15,000 bond; his protection lawyer, Invoice Frederick, didn’t reply to NPR’s repeated makes an attempt to contact him. The trial towards Wachner is scheduled to start on Oct. 20.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Division alleges in charging paperwork that between August 2024 and February 2025, it tracked about $840 in cryptocurrency that Wachner despatched to digital accounts related to a “darkish internet” web site which traffics in youngster intercourse abuse materials. Within the paperwork, detectives allege that Wachner admitted to utilizing cryptocurrency “lots of of instances” to buy movies of kids “ranging in age from roughly 1 to 16 years outdated. He additional disclosed that his particular choice was for materials involving kids between the ages of 6 and 13.”
Till his arrest, the 55-year-old Wachner had been working as a fourth-grade math instructor at Invent Studying Hub, an area constitution college.
In an announcement despatched to NPR on Wednesday, Invent Studying Hub wrote: “Efficient instantly, Julian Wachner is not an worker of Invent Studying Hub. We wish to be clear with our neighborhood: at no time have been our workers or board members conscious that Mr. Wachner was underneath investigation, nor did we’ve got data of the actions that led to this example. As a part of our commonplace hiring course of, we performed thorough background checks in accordance with our established insurance policies. The protection and well-being of our college students stay our highest precedence.”
Wachner’s most up-to-date musical work has been with the Belgium-based early music group Concerto Vocale. As of Monday, Concerto Vocale had posted an announcement on its web site that it had “suspended its relationship” with Wachner after studying of his arrest, although the publish has since been eliminated. In his work with the Belgian group, Wachner had labored intently with a boys choir.
Through the heyday of his musical profession, Wachner was twice nominated for Grammy Awards for his work as a conductor. He recorded over a dozen albums of his personal and different composers’ music with labels together with Naxos, VIA and ATMA and performed main orchestras together with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Wachner had largely been out of the general public eye in recent times, however his arrest on Aug. 20 marked a shocking growth within the profession of a musician who was as soon as extremely lauded and admired, notably in New York. Till 2022, he was the director of music and the humanities at Trinity Wall Road, one of many metropolis’s wealthiest church buildings and a mainstay in New York’s arts neighborhood. It’s notably well-known for its youth refrain, which attracts younger singers from throughout town.
Wachner was dismissed from his place at Trinity in 2022. His firing got here after The New York Occasions revealed a report that stated a lady had accused him of groping her and kissing her towards her will at a Juilliard Faculty residency program in Aiken, S.C. in 2014. Wachner denied the allegations, and no prison costs have been filed towards him. Wachner later filed a civil lawsuit towards Juilliard, accusing the college of defamation; that case was dismissed with prejudice by the New York Supreme Courtroom in June 2023.
Wachner was scheduled to conduct the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Refrain [ISO] this December, however his identify has been faraway from the orchestra’s web site. NPR repeatedly requested remark from the ISO, however didn’t obtain a reply.
