— whoa! JOSETTE ALLEN LYNN just stole my cab! not cool, but maybe they needed it more. they have lived in the city for SIX YEARS, working as a MUSIC DIRECTOR, CONDUCTOR & COMPOSER. that can’t be easy, especially at only FORTY YEARS OLD. some people say they can be a little bit EMOTIONAL and SECRETIVE, but i know them to be COMPASSIONATE and DEDICATED. whatever. i guess i’ll catch the next cab. hope they like the ride back to MANHATTAN! — (kate, 26, gmt, she/her, eating disorders)
tws: infertility, ivf treatment, infidelity, divorce, anxiety, panic attack
early life:
josette was actually born in york, yorkshire. she’s the eldest of four siblings but the middle child always stepped up and outperformed her in every single way. her mother was a music teacher and her father a chemist. although she was inspired by music, she never decided to take up a music hobby like her siblings and was part of a swimming club instead.
jo had always been conscientious. a student, she’d get easily upset if she did anything wrong and would want to avoid any repercussion from it, even if it was as simple as a note being jotted down to say she’d forgotten one of her workbooks, she’d cry about it.
at school, she was the person who would sing in front of her peers in assembly and be bullied by people because of it. she had always been in a choir and had a good voice but children were cruel and that knocked her confidence massively.
she was around 10 when she decided she wanted to take up some music classes, however, the only one available was in choral conducting. she went from being in the choir to conducting it and she preferred her back to the audience.
career:
despite being trained in music, the woman doesn’t know how to play an instrument. she has a very impressive resume as she studied in zurich before taking conductor positions for ballet companies across the globe.
she conducted her first choir at the age of 12.
she has the ability to not only learn a piece in record time but understand it. josette is an obsessive person and does let it consume her from time to time. it does worry her parents but she’s on a lot of money and she now pays for her parents’ retirement and holiday home so everything must be going great, right?
josette had previously worked for the royal ballet; starting out as a conductor there before coming to new york city. it was a jump from principal conductor to a music director but it was one she welcomed openly.
she even has a long-standing contract with disney and has been involved in the soundtrack recording of various blockbusters. she just has to make sure her schedules don’t clash.
it was her 'messing around’ in a band that would lead her become a world-renowned composer, with a few oscars and grammys below her belt. it was the perfect amount of being seen but not swarmed as if she were famous and she had got lucky on that front. a very private person, there was only so many red carpet walks she would do.
when it comes to her profession, josette is an obsessive person and does let it consume her from time to time. it does worry her parents but she’s on a lot of money ( ~ £2m per score and she now pays for her parents’ retirement and holiday home so everything must be going great, right? not only would she work her way up to chief conductor, josette would also continue her work as a composer. she's obsessed with music and does find it difficult to switch off.
think of her discography as that of someone like hans zimmer, it’s that style and she can be both impactful and experimental, electronic along with traditional orchestra.
she has also got disney composing and conducting credits for various scores and has been involved in the soundtrack recording of various blockbusters.
earns a couple million upfront for her scores and then any royalties on top of that.
josette did miss the last season after things came to ahead in her personal life but she took a leave of absence and the company are glad to welcome her back to doing what she does best.
personal life / break down of her marriage:
jo met her now ex-husband when she first moved to new york city and assumed her music director role four years ago. she was renting out a small apartment in brooklyn, one that she could easily afford but some of the larger apartments didn’t give her such flexibility when it came to short-term rent. a successful investor, one that she had met closing night of the ballet, was incredibly charming. they had a lot to talk about and seemed to appreciate each other’s pace. they were married within the year.
while he seemed to be smitten by her, his parents and friends seemed to be a little harder. she wasn’t from upper-class society (though she had kept her fake london accent when she moved over from london) and although she could hold her own, she was different. she was polite as she had run with these types of crowds, for years, in her line of work but it was never something she was truly happy with.
problems started to arise when he wanted children. jo wasn’t opposed to it and they did try but there were issues, more so on her side. she knew that he definitely felt pressure from his family to carry on the legacy and that pressure was also taken on by jo.
they started the ivf process and it made her feel terrible. while her sick days didn’t increase, the woman didn’t look well throughout it. a couple of months in, she collapsed at work and was hospitalised.
she had reached her limit. she was in pain and she chose to stop the treatment. her husband was crushed by it and did attempt to change her mind but it didn’t work. the woman was afraid that he’d leave her seen as having a child was something he wanted but he stayed.
there was an obvious rift between them after that. he did look after her, they continued as normal but then he stopped coming to the ballet, something that he had kept up since the had first met to keep the tradition going. she felt like there was something going on and she did feel guilty for it.
around a year ago, he sat her down after work and gave her the news that he was leaving her. at first, she didn’t believe it but he was serious. he had been in a relationship for the best part of six months and she was pregnant. she tried to convince him that they could work it out but it wasn’t what he wanted.
the aftermath:
he had moved out of the penthouse (rightfully so as it was his fault) but jo’s name wasn’t on it. everything felt like it was going to be taken away from her. he had moved in with this new woman, who was slightly younger than her and from an upper east side affluent family.
it wasn’t her finest moment when she tried to beg him to come back and after being met with hostility when he used to be the one to comfort her, she stopped trying. she keeps on doing this but is dishonest about it when it comes to friends asking her about it - she's embarrassed.
everything felt like it was her fault, that she could have prevented this all from happening if she ‘pushed herself’ to give him what he had wanted. she was so confused as to why he had chosen to stay with her and go behind her back rather than just tell her then and there. unknown to josette, one of her friends found out and said if he didn’t tell her, they would.
anxiousness seemed to follow her wherever she went. she kept the divorce a secret from everyone, scared of being one of those statistics and not wanting to be the brunt of gossip. she hadn’t even told her parents and that caused issues when he took it upon himself to ring them and when they were talking like they were still together, he broke the news. this has caused a lot of contention with her folks back in england.
one morning on the way to work, jo experienced a panic attack on the subway. someone realised what was happening and attended to her before getting her off at the next stop. it was them who called her work and explained the situation.
she took a few days off but then went back like nothing had happened. the same happened again, only this time it was during rehearsal. it lead to her finally opening up about what was going on and she took a leave of absence (it was more them telling her than her offering).
the woman seemed to completely disappear from society as she isolated herself. the divorce was done, she had been given the penthouse, a decision she didn’t quite know the meaning of, and then she was preoccupied with selling it. she’s not managed to find a buyer.
