During her piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Margaret Halliwell’s teacher would sometimes turn off the lights in the studio and chase her around the piano.
Halliwell, then in her early 20s, would turn the lights back on and firmly say to the eminent instructor, “No, Mr. Berlin, I am here for my lesson.”
Then, according to Halliwell, after Boris Berlin insulted her until she cried, “he would comfort me, and then he would start to fondle me, and then he’d try to put my hand on his penis.”
Halliwell, who died in 2023 at age 72, told this story to her two daughters, also musicians, as a warning and a lesson on the importance of challenging authority.
“She wanted us to be able to recognize when power was being abused, finding our own voice in those situations and how to confront the abuse,” said Emily Halliwell-MacDonald. “She wanted us to know that sexual abuse is about power.”
The Halliwell daughters shared their mother’s allegations with the Star as calls mount for the prestigious Toronto institution to reckon with the alleged conduct of its most famous teacher, now the subject of two allegations of wrongdoing, including Halliwell’s.
Berlin, who wrote the popular primer “The ABC of Piano Playing” and was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada for having “profoundly influenced musical instruction in our country,” died in 2001. He taught at the RCM for more than 70 years. In a separate allegation, another former student recently came forward, alleging Berlin sexually abused her when she was a teenager in the 1980s.
Boris Berlin, seen here in 2001.
David Cooper/Toronto Star
But so far, the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) has failed to take concerns about Berlin seriously, according to critics who say RCM has long been aware of Berlin’s conduct but has done little to address it.
A recently hired Conservatory teacher has quit in protest of the school’s handling of the first allegation. That instructor, prominent American pianist Jonathan Biss, shares his story in an op-ed in today’s Star.
Meanwhile, a petition demanding an independent investigation into alleged sexual abuse at the RCM has gathered more than 2,200 names since it launched April 20. Acclaimed Canadian entertainer Jann Arden is among the signatories, according to petition organizers. So is Halliwell’s other daughter Shannon.
The Halliwell family came forward to the Star after reading an article in the newspaper detailing allegations from former Berlin student Lusiana Lukman.
In her first-person article, Lukman said Berlin sexually abused her in the mid 1980s, when she was 15 years old, a recent visa student from Indonesia who barely spoke English and without family or friends in Canada. Lukman said she reported the abuse to the school’s director of academic studies at the time, Peter Simon, but aside from an offer to switch teachers, nothing was done. At the time of Lukman’s article, Simon said he did not recall the meeting but that he would have treated such allegations seriously and reported them to his superiors.
Lusiana Lukman went on to establish her own musical school, the Classical Music Conservatory, in Toronto.
Lance McMillan/Toronto Star
In a statement to the Star, the school said that since Lukman’s allegations emerged in February it has been conducting a “thorough internal investigation.”
Lukman said no one from the school’s current administration has reached out to her. In her petition, she expressed concern that the RCM is prioritizing its reputation over the safety of the students under its care.
An RCM spokesperson said its internal investigation has been complicated “by the fact that RCM was owned and operated by the University of Toronto, during the period in question” and that the school is exploring other options, including an independent, third-party investigation.
In response to the Star’s question about Halliwell’s allegation, the RCM said: “We are deeply saddened to learn of allegations by Margaret Halliwell’s family. … We recognize the profound impact these accounts have on survivors, their families, and our community. … We hear clearly the calls for action from students, parents, faculty, and community members. We stand with victims of sexual abuse and remain committed to addressing these concerns with the seriousness and care they deserve.”
Students witnessed Berlin’s alleged verbal and sexual abuse
Born in 1951 in St. Catharines, Ont., Halliwell grew up in a deeply religious home, and her parents insisted she go to the Ontario Bible College. But she wanted to be a musician and teacher.
During an interview at their home in Toronto, Halliwell’s husband Don MacDonald, also a musician, and their two daughters, now in their 30s, told the story of Margaret’s journey to the RCM. Both daughters are musicians and studied piano and took exams at the Conservatory.
Margaret Halliwell’s husband Don MacDonald, with their children, Shannon Halliwell-MacDonald, left, and Emily Halliwell-MacDonald, in the family home with a photo of Margaret.
Richard Lautens Toronto Star
When Halliwell left to study in Toronto in the 1970s, the RCM was considered the best place to study music, and Boris Berlin was an internationally renowned teacher. He’d written the books everyone studied from, including “The Modern Piano Student” and the “Four Star” series. More than 4 million copies of his books have reportedly been sold worldwide.
Berlin praised Halliwell at first, but in the second year of tutelage his behaviour allegedly changed. “He would verbally abuse my mum,” said Shannon. Berlin allegedly told her “I know six-year-olds who play better than you.”
After enduring the alleged abuse throughout her second year studying under Berlin, she asked the RCM to change teachers, which it did, the Halliwell family said.
Halliwell shared abuse allegations with friend, daughters
Halliwell also told her friend and colleague Carolyn Jones about the alleged abuse, when they both worked as piano teachers in the 1980s.
“She told me how he was constantly chasing her around the piano and … inappropriately touching her,” Jones said.
Jones, who also studied at the RCM around the same time as Halliwell, said one of her own teachers warned her never to be alone in a room with Berlin. She had taken a group class with Berlin and witnessed him inappropriately touching and verbally abusing a student.
Jones said she did not report the alleged incident to the RCM. “All of us were … looking at the floor, looking away. We didn’t want to fail his class and he was the teacher. You’re not supposed to speak up.”
Halliwell also did not complain to the RCM. “Boris Berlin was a highly sought-after and regarded teacher of the piano and he attracted paying international students,” her husband, Don MacDonald said. “So Margaret felt it would be futile.”
Halliwell taught at the RCM from 1980 to 2010, taught privately until 2023, and also worked as a musical consultant for TV and film and an adjudicator at music festivals.
Halliwell’s daughters said their mother was outraged at the power Berlin had over students, particularly international students and others more vulnerable than her.
“She was a (Canadian) citizen and she was older,” Shannon said. “She had more power in that situation than a lot of other people did.”
At Margaret Halliwell’s memorial service in February 2024, a family friend shared details of what Margaret had alleged happened to her at the Royal Conservatory. Halliwell had told the story to her daughters as a cautionary tale.
In November, 2023, Halliwell learned she had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a rare neurodegenerative disorder that damages the brain and can cause dementia and involuntary movement.
While making final arrangements, Halliwell’s daughters made sure to share the details of their mother’s allegations with a family friend who was asked to speak at the memorial.
During the celebration of life in February 2024, the friend spoke to the gathering at a church in midtown Toronto.
“(Margaret) shared this story with her daughters who told it to me,” she said during the memorial service. “She was very open and she wanted them to recognize that they had the power to say no to someone in authority.”
Royal Conservatory instructor frustrated by inaction
After Lukman’s allegations against Berlin appeared in the Star, the Conservatory’s CEO, Alexander Brose, sent a memo to staff saying the institution is “deeply troubled and saddened” to learn of the allegations and commended Lukman’s courage in sharing her experience. (Lukman shared her story after first appearing in a documentary by Lara St. John, about misconduct in the classical music world.)
The memo said RCM “maintains a zero-tolerance position on abuse,” and that, since Brose took over two years ago, the institution has “worked diligently … to strengthen our institutional culture” so that everyone feels “safe, supported, and respected.”
Biss, who had been recruited to the RCM’s Glenn Gould School for music performance last summer, expected more.
He wrote in his essay for the Star that he was surprised at RCM’s inaction. “No independent, external investigation had been launched by the time I resigned, and no schoolwide conversation had been initiated. The abuser, now dead, remains an Officer of the Order of Canada.”
Biss said he repeatedly communicated with the school’s leadership, and, “in each instance, I urged them to launch an investigation.”
Biss doesn’t recall RCM leaders mentioning any internal reviews when he raised his concerns. Anything short of a third-party investigation would be inadequate, he said in his op-ed in the Star.
He quit his new post, believing that staying would mean accepting a status quo that tolerated the alleged abuse of minors.
“None of us want to feel that we are complicit,” he wrote in an email to the Star. “But if no one is complicit — if we convince ourselves that standing against sexual abuse is someone else’s responsibility — then we are all complicit.
“I left the RCM because I want to do better. I want the RCM to do better. I want all of us to do better.”