Benjamin Zander is an English orchestral conductor and cellist. He was born in 1939, of
German descent, started composing music at the age of nine and became the
youngest member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the age of
twelve. He even caught the attention of composer Benjamin Britten who invited
him and his family to spend three summers with him at his summerhouse.
He
is now a living legend. Zander’s life has been so deeply moved and driven by
his love of classical music that he devotes his time to teaching, conducting
and speaking around the world. And in listening to his TED talk he did move me.
He speaks with wisdom and passion about something that he is passionate about
and that comes across: he is genuine and transmits his truth to the audience.
There
were particularly two quotes from his talk that I find very interesting. One is
musical. He says about conducting: "The conductor of an orchestra doesn't
make a sound. My picture appears on the front of the CD, but the conductor
doesn't make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other
people powerful. And that changed everything for me. I realized my job was to
awaken possibility in other people. And of course, I wanted to know whether I
was doing that. And you know how you find out? You look at their eyes. If their
eyes are shining, you know you're doing it. So if the eyes are shining, you
know you're doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question. And
this is the question: who am I being, that my players' eyes are not shining? We
can do that with our children, too. Who am I being, that my children's eyes are
not shining? That's a totally different world."
The
other quote goes like this: "It's one of the characteristics of a leader
that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he's leading to
realize whatever he's dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said 'I have
a dream. Of course, I'm not sure they'll be up to it'."
Although
one is embedded in a musical example and the other one is not, his words are
about leadership. Having played in orchestras and sang in choirs for most of my
life I understand entirely the meaning behind those words; and is that kind of
leader, the one that empowers others, the one I aspire to be. I want to see the
eyes of the people around me shine. A lot of times, being in a position of
certain power blinds us to the things that are going around us and that are
truly important. We get lost in the less important work and forget the passion
and the motivation that drove us down the path we chose. We forget there is a
bigger picture. It happens a lot in classical music with conductors who get
stuck in their jobs and forget that it was the love for music what put them
there; they just move their hands and expect the gesture to be enough to make good music. Or at least music. It also happens in many other aspects of life and career choices and it
is something to fight against. Being apathetic is never a good thing.
I
also loved about his talk the fact that he got an audience of 1.600 people to
listen to Chopin. It seems like no big deal, right? Every day many more people go to concerts all around the world. But do they really listen? It is the true
listening of the music, and the understanding, from our personal conditions and
experiences what makes it such an amazing experience. As Zander himself says,
everyone loves classical music, they just don’t know it yet.
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