Paul Green steps down from national music tours after allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior
Green, said a spokesperson, has turned over leadership of the annual student performances, which include stops in eight U.S. cities and three Germany shows, to a former bassist for Frank Zappa.
Paul Green, founder of the Paul Green Rock Academy, which includes a school in Manayunk, will no longer join students on a national tour this summer. The announcement comes in the wake of allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior made against Green by former students.
According to a school spokesperson, Green has turned over leadership of the annual student performances — which begin July 5 and include stops in eight U.S. cities and eight shows in Europe — to Scott Thunes, assistant musical director for the academy, and a bassist who formerly played in Frank Zappa’s band.
Green’s name will also no longer be associated with the annual tours, the pinnacle of the academy’s yearly program. Instead, Thunes will lead the tours under the name, “Thunes Institute for Musical Excellence,” the spokesperson said.
“This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring the events are focused solely on the hardworking and talented students and their unforgettable performances,” the spokesperson said.
Green, who first formed his music program in Center City in the 1990s under the name the Paul Green School of Rock Music, before selling that company in 2009, made the decision “so not to risk distraction or negative attention, which could overshadow” the students, the spokesperson said.
While Green will not tour with students, he has not stepped down from the PGRA franchise itself, which has three locations, including schools in Connecticut and the Bay Area.
Earlier this month, in a lengthy investigative article published in the digital magazine Air Mail, former students and staff members alleged that Green routinely abused his position as founder of the now famed music education program that he began out of his living room in 1996.
Green has long been known for using vulgar and derisive language while teaching.
Many of the new allegations from former students allege inappropriate behavior, including grilling teens about their sex lives and pressuring students into intimate acts, like kissing, with himself and other students.
During his time at the Paul Green School of Rock Music, Green taught hundreds of teens, focusing mostly on the School of Rock All-Stars, an elite group of under-17 musicians who toured the country as headline acts.
Investigative reporter Ezra Marcus interviewed 60 former students; Deanna Stull, a Philly rock scene veteran who helped Green form the school; and Michael Morpurgo, who also worked with Green.
While some students praised Green, nearly 10 students, quoted by name in the article, described Green as volatile, violent, and sexually inappropriate, and said he regularly abused the power he had as a teacher. The students also said Green has a house in suburban New York where former students allegedly engaged in drug use.
Green has continued an iteration of the tours in his new academy, which teaches children between the ages of 12 and 18, including 22 students at the Philly location. Nearly all of the Philly students are scheduled to join the tours, which include students from across the country, the spokesperson said.
Thunes toured with the students last summer, the academy said in a social media statement. The statement described Thunes as “the best guy for this job.”