This year, Benjamin Zander began his 39th year as the conductor of the New England Conservatory's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (YPO), based in Boston, Massachusetts. Maestro Zander and his orchestra traveled on their 15th international tour (and first with Encore) this past summer to Prague, Bratislava and Vienna where they performed in festivals, played encores in prestigious venues, and wowed audiences. Read our interview with the acclaimed conductor, internationally renowned author and lecturer, mentor and Grammy award nominee.

Q: Why do you think it’s important to perform and travel internationally? 

A: Travel is extraordinarily important. It makes an enormous difference in the life of a musician. If you’re an opera singer, you go to Italy. If you’re a chef, you go to Paris. If you’re a musician, you go to Vienna. It’s an essential part of a musician's training. You can get it second-hand, but it’s best to be there.

So much of what we do is routine, ordinary and forgettable—you go to school and you have a math class and an English class, you drink a coke, you go play a basketball game and it all just disappears, but these things don’t disappear. They’re indelibly imprinted in people’s minds and in their DNA. It shifts the way they relate to the world and opens their heart to new experiences. It makes them more passionate and more fully alive.

Q: How did you prepare your orchestra for a tour overseas?    

A: We do a lot of rehearsing and I also talk a lot in rehearsals about the music, the background, the composers, and how the piece developed—of course, that's all part of my job. But I also felt that we needed an expert to show us the Czech Republic so we had a world-class scholar join us. He's one of the greatest living musicologists and professors of our time, Christopher Hailey. He came to Prague with us and every time we stopped or even when the bus was going or whenever he could gather a group together, he would talk and talk to the students about the background of what Mahler was thinking and doing. It was an endless amount of information to broaden their understanding and to deepen their knowledge and heighten the experience.  

Q: Tell us about your performances. Were there any special highlights?

A: Musikverein no question about it. It was one of the highpoints of my life and certainly many of the students said it was an experience they would never match in their entire lives. They were aware of the fact that very few of the things in their life would be equal to playing Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the Musikverein. What could you do to match it? You could become Pope. It would have to be something of that level.

For me interestingly enough, a very highpoint was in a small town on the Danube called Krems. I had never heard of it. In it was a very, very beautiful cathedral with what appeared to be impossible acoustics for an orchestra. I walked into that cathedral and thought, oh this is going to be ghastly because there's so much reverberation and you wouldn’t be able to hear the details, but I was completely wrong. The orchestra knew the piece so well. They did so magnificently. The sound in the cathedral was so extraordinary that I don’t even think I was conducting…it was just amazing. It was probably the best performance my orchestra has ever given in the 38 years I’ve been conducting them. It was an extraordinary moment.

Q: What were some other highlights from your tour?

A: The first horn player of the Bratislava orchestra came to me after one of our concerts and said, I’ve been playing in this orchestra for 40 years and I heard the Dvorak, and you all played it correctly for the first time tonight. That’s an extraordinary thing to say coming from a player from the major Slovakian orchestra.

The 20-minute standing ovation for the orchestra in the Musikverein was even more extraordinary. I also have wonderful letters from the kids after coming back and one of them described what it was like to put her hands on the wall of the house in which Mahler lived. She writes, "Although the past seems so far away and unimaginable, at that moment, I realized how close I was to Mahler. Touching the building that he had touched made me almost cry."

Q: How would you rate the overall success of your tour?  

A: Very, very high. The last time we toured with a company was 25 years ago and it was not a good experience. Traveling with Encore was a huge relief and a huge pleasure. They made sure that the venues and concert halls were filled. We played in major venues and we played for the Slovak National Radio station and the broadcast was played all around Europe. The Mahler festival was full. We played in Litomysl in the Smetana festival and 1,200 seats were sold out in an hour. They took us to good places and showed us the tourist side as well, which is important. The tour was a huge success.