[crux]

I came away with the exact same conclusion as you. The article describes a rather commonplace career of fraud; more or less every industry has them. There’s nothing unique to classical music here; it’s human nature to generally take people at their word about their past accomplishments, to be impressed by famous names, and to allow their critical judgment to be influenced by what they think they know.

[girvo]

I think the author did quite well at explaining how Classical music's industry engenders this though: Foision was literally being given awards and prizes based solely on his made-up CV rather than his actual music. Sure that's not inherently unique, but it was convincing enough to me that there are structural problems inherent to how credential-and-"fame" focused the classical industry is, based on the articles arguments.

That said, I think the fraud itself is small, so perhaps the conclusion is too grand; but it's not out of nowhere either, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the arguments made.