Dear Lara and effecting change
It’s been three months since I attended the premiere of Dear Lara at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Since that time, survivor Lusiana Lukman, who named her abuser Boris Berlin for the first time in the film, also documented her story in The Toronto Star and led a campaign to pressure the Royal Conservatory of Music to respond to her allegations, which they failed to do until this week after additional pressure from pianist Jonathan Biss, who resigned in protest from RCM. As per usual Katherine Needleman and Lara St. John continue to write compellingly about these events and are must-reads for people who care about classical music. I hope that the words and actions of these brave women and allies encourage us all to find ways to push back against the kind of culture that make stories like Lusiana Lukman’s all too common.
Directory updates
We have added 14 people since last September. As of May 1, 2026, the current directory count stands at 101 – go check out the latest. Note: we don’t expose this tab in the user interface, because it raises user experience issues. If you have experience in software UX and would like to collaborate, please contact support@we-had-no-idea.org.
New status: “Has sued”
I felt compelled to add this tag after Jonathan Carney’s recent defamation suit against Lara St. John. You can check out everyone who has sued in response to being named in sexual abuse allegations and also see a list of all the statuses I thought were significant.
Future Work
I’m still looking for potential future board members for converting this site to a non-profit, especially residents of California!
If you would like to support this project by volunteering to help proofread entries, vet submissions, or collaborate on user-experience improvements, please write to support@we-had-no-idea.org.