This report includes mentions of sexual violence.
Julian Wachner, a conductor and composer who once held jobs with some of New York's most respected institutions, has been charged in Indiana with possessing child sexual abuse material and cocaine.
On Tuesday, prosecutors in Marion County, Ind., filed 11 felony charges against him: 10 counts of possessing child sexual abuse material depicting children younger than 12 years old, and an additional count of cocaine possession. Wachner has pleaded not guilty and posted a $15,000 bond; his defense lawyer, Bill Frederick, did not reply to NPR's repeated attempts to contact him. The trial against Wachner is scheduled to begin on Oct. 20.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department alleges in charging documents that between August 2024 and February 2025, it tracked about $840 in cryptocurrency that Wachner sent to digital accounts associated with a "dark web" site which traffics in child sex abuse material. In the documents, detectives allege that Wachner admitted to using cryptocurrency "hundreds of times" to purchase videos of children "ranging in age from approximately 1 to 16 years old. He further disclosed that his specific preference was for material involving children between the ages of 6 and 13."
Until his arrest, the 55-year-old Wachner had been working as a fourth-grade math teacher at Invent Learning Hub, a local charter school.
In a statement sent to NPR on Wednesday, Invent Learning Hub wrote: "Effective immediately, Julian Wachner is no longer an employee of Invent Learning Hub. We want to be transparent with our community: at no time were our employees or board members aware that Mr. Wachner was under investigation, nor did we have knowledge of the actions that led to this situation. As part of our standard hiring process, we conducted thorough background checks in accordance with our established policies. The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priority."
Wachner's most recent musical work has been with the Belgium-based early music organization Concerto Vocale. As of Monday, Concerto Vocale had posted an announcement on its website that it had "suspended its relationship" with Wachner after learning of his arrest, though the post has since been removed. In his work with the Belgian organization, Wachner had worked closely with a boys choir.
During the heyday of his musical career, Wachner was twice nominated for Grammy Awards for his work as a conductor. He recorded over a dozen albums of his own and other composers' music with labels including Naxos, VIA and ATMA and conducted major orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Wachner had largely been out of the public eye in recent years, but his arrest on Aug. 20 marked a stunning development in the career of a musician who was once highly lauded and admired, particularly in New York. Until 2022, he was the director of music and the arts at Trinity Wall Street, one of the city's wealthiest churches and a mainstay in New York's arts community. It is particularly well known for its youth chorus, which draws young singers from across the city.
Wachner was dismissed from his position at Trinity in 2022. His firing came after The New York Times published a report that said a woman had accused him of groping her and kissing her against her will at a Juilliard School residency program in Aiken, S.C. in 2014. Wachner denied the allegations, and no criminal charges were filed against him. Wachner later filed a civil lawsuit against Juilliard, accusing the school of defamation; that case was dismissed with prejudice by the New York Supreme Court in June 2023.
Wachner was scheduled to conduct the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus [ISO] this December, but his name has been removed from the orchestra's website. NPR repeatedly requested comment from the ISO, but did not receive a reply.
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