They Kept His Reputation: I Kept the Memory

A Young Violinist's Chance of A Lifetime

Statement by Nina Powers —

My name is Nina Powers. I am a violinist, business owner, and mother from Seattle. I am also a survivor of child sexual abuse at the hands of Mark Sokol — first violinist of the Concord String Quartet, Naumburg Award winner, Emmy winner, Juilliard graduate, Dartmouth, Tanglewood faculty.

As a teenager in the 1980’s the highlight of my summer was attending the Marrowstone Music Festival — the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra (SYSO)’s three-week intensive camp at Fort Flagler State Park. The violin was not a hobby for me. It was my life. I had studied since age seven, been accepted at ten into the studio of Vilem Sokol at the University of Washington, by highschool, I was serious. I was ready. The Concord String Quartet was coming to teach that summer. I owned their albums. I could not wait.

Within the first days, Mark Sokol took an interest in my playing. He offered me private lessons.

Of course, I said yes. A a world-class musician had noticed me!

It started with his hands on mine. Then my waist. Adjustments, he said. Then he kissed me. The visits to my practice hut continued and his sexual advances escalated. He promised me Juilliard. He let me play his Stradivarius. He told me our secret was sacred. I told my roommate and one other friend, and then I told no one else, because I was fifteen and he was an adult with celebrity status, large stature and authority. Obedience to a teacher in the classical music world is a required expectation of any serious student. What did that mean now? I was scared and confused.

My student quartet performed Beethoven String Quartet Op. 59 No. 1 at the chamber music concert that summer. We got a standing ovation. Sokol insisted we celebrate. He walked me back toward the dorms, pressed drinks on me along the way, and steered me into a cannon bunker near the cliffs. He pushed me onto the cement. He told me sex with him would take my playing to the next level.

I fought him off. I ran across that field barefoot, in my concert dress, until I found a flashlight. I ran towards it. A camp ranger. Safety, I thought.

What followed was not safety. I was questioned, then moved to the cook’s quarters at the edge of camp and told to stay there. The next day, someone brought me white bread and sliced ham.

When my parents arrived, I was informed I had been expelled from the festival — for breaking curfew and drinking. Actions that were entirely the result of what Mark Sokol had done to me.

My parents and I drove five hours home in near silence.

The child was expelled. The adult continued on to the San Francisco Conservatory, Tanglewood, Dartmouth, two Grammy nominations, and decades more access to young musicians. He died in 2014 with his reputation intact.

Later that same year, another female string player came to me and told me he had done the same to her. I resumed my place in the SYSO in the fall, although I began experiencing extreme anxiety (PTSD) during rehearsals. I quit before the end of the year.

During the weeks of abuse, I also began a 10-year struggle with bulimia and anorexia nervosa until at 84 lbs., medical and psychiatric care became the mandated focus of my life. By the time I was a college freshman at USF I had quit the violin altogether due to the trauma associated with it.

In 2025, with the lifting of the statute of limitations on sex offenses against children in Washington State, I contacted a law firm in the hope that an investigation could be launched.

Witnesses came forward quickly — people who had seen what was happening, who knew that staff had been alerted at the time. My roommate remembered the night I didn’t come back to the dorm and how she ran across a field at night to alert the faculty that I was missing. A cellist remembered watching Sokol take me for walks at strange hours, and keeping me late after evening rehearsals. She remembered thinking: why was Nina the one who got kicked out?

That is the right question. It has always been the right question.

Another woman has come forward about abuses she endured by Sokol before my year at the camp. I encourage every survivor to come forward. I know how hard that is. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to forget this, and I can tell you plainly: an infection that is ignored does not heal. It spreads. Quietly, and into everything.

I am not speaking out because it is easy or because the timing is convenient or because I have nothing to lose. I am speaking out because children are still being handed to wolves inside institutions that protect their own reputation above all else, and because silence has never once made that better. Policies do not change until people do. And people do not change until we say, out loud, what is true.

What kind of society are we building for our children? Hopefully one better than the one I was handed. We can do better.

I have begun a petition to demand an independent, transparent and thorough investigation from the SYSO into historical child abuse. Please sign it.

Nina Powers

https://www.change.org/p/demand-the-syso-conduct-an-investigation-into-historical-child-sexual-abuse