BPYO 2025 Mexico Tour Musings
I thought I would share my summing up of the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra tour to Mexico in June 2025. https://www.bostonphil.org/concerts/international-tours/2025-summer-mexico It was a perfect experience for all the young musicians!
BPYO 2025 Mexico Tour Musings
“Why do you go on tour?”
I’m asked that question numerous times by people who wonder why youth orchestras like the BPYO go to the enormous effort and expense to give a bunch of mostly privileged kids a trip abroad. Imagine the untold number of hours of planning and coordination, the cost of about one million dollars (sometimes more), the daunting responsibility for caring for all those young lives, the endless musical decisions, and the enormous emotional strain on a on an overworked administrative team. Should we really be doing this every year?
Well, if you ask the young musicians, their families, their teachers, their friends and those who hear and interact with them in the countries visited, the answer will assuredly be a resounding yes!
I became the dean of the New England Conservatory Preparatory School in the fall of 1979. One of my first actions was to reinstate Benjamin Zander as conductor of the school orchestra, called the Youth Chamber Orchestra, to expand and rename the group the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and begin the work with Ben towards establishing one of the great youth orchestras of the United Sates. Having traveled internationally a number of times as teacher, player, and musical assistant with a small group called the New England Youth Ensemble, I knew that touring had to be part of the picture. So, in the spring of 1981, the YPO ventured out on a three-week tour to Eastern Europe hosted by Friendship Ambassadors, an organization whose mission it was to foster friendship between Western and Soviet Bloc youth through the performing arts. Touring every other June, the 80’s saw more tours to Soviet Republics and Western Europe, the 90’s to Latin America and Israel, and, after that, a mix of Asia, Europe, the US, Canada, and South America until Maestro Zander left NEC and launched the BPYO in 2012. Since then, the BPYO has toured internationally every June. Ben and I have calculated that this year’s Mexico tour is the 28th!
To explain the significance of these tours on the lives of young musicians is to shine a light on their profound humanity, musicality, energy, and tenacity, and their emotional, social and mental intelligence. Nearly all of them say that tours are their greatest experiences, that they’ll never be the same, that their eyes have been opened to the larger world, that they have learned that all human being are their brothers and sisters, that their capacity to envision ways that they can grow to contribute to the betterment of humankind have deepened and broadened, and, perhaps above all, they have embraced and been nourished by some of the greatest creations of Western classical music more deeply than they could have imagined. Let me give a few glances into why all this can happen in a space of a couple of weeks in June.
First, they become full time students of Ben Zander, not just dropping into class (rehearsal) once a week. They see Ben’s exuberant lust for life in front of them hour by hour. They feel how much he believes in them, how he himself acts in the world, radiating sunshine, warmth, creativity, passion, humanity, and love. They witness his total belief in the power of great Western classical music to uplift and transform the lives of every human being on the planet, and this is transferred directly to their hearts and minds. They see and hear how his lofty oratorial skills when speaking to them and to audiences is always focused on both the understanding (hence the greater impact) of the music and his noble ideals about deep bonds within the family of humankind, how his life goals are centered on the need to break down the barriers between cultures and clans, and how his ever present belief in “Possibility,” the ability to envision a better world and the confidence that we have the power to bring it about, operates in one’s life. Albert Einstein said that one’s example isn’t the just the best way to influence and educate others, it’s the only way. So, number one is learning from Ben in ways that are simply not possible in the rush of life back home.
An enormous amount has been said and written about the profound benefits of travel to the human experience. Seeing young people experience the variety of ways that different cultures interact with each other and world has enormous impact on each of their futures. They gain the ability to put their own joys and sorrows into a far broader context, helping them to feel the commonality among all people. This happens most dramatically in the interactions with the young musicians of countries visited, where lasting friendships are created, palettes of music expression are amplified, and lessons in how the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole, are learned. They travel with a musical mission, to play their concerts at the highest possible level, but then they realize that this brings them to a far greater mission: learning that human relationships are the central factor in all that we are and do.
A somewhat more subtle effect of tours is one very close to my heart: the validation that the music-making that the young musicians have dedicated their lives to is a worthy and noble human pursuit. They hear and feel the gratitude of audiences (especially those in Latin America) for their performance in ways more difficult to perceive in the U.S. They so often come into contact with listeners who are visibly moved and uplifted by the generosity of spirit expressed through their music-making. Their musical work, beliefs, and hopes are validated by those experiences in ways that will sustain them throughout their careers in music and other fields. I can’t overstate the importance of this. Every young musician in the U.S. struggles with doubts about the relevance of Western classical music to the world of today and the future. On tour they feel how deeply meaningful their music is to people in the places they visit, and they are moved to carry on in one of the most demanding paths a person can pursue.
But there’s more to the validation of our students’ musical lives than what they experience in the concert halls. Often, they participate in interchanges with youth music programs, and most of those are inspired by the Venezuelan El Sistema model. In a word, El Sistema believes in the power of excellence-driven music learning and performance as a tool to uplift the lives of impoverished children, giving them tools to prosper and contribute to their families, communities and societies, creating, as El Sistema founder Jose Antonio Abreu stated, “an affluence of the spirit.” The young musicians who have wondered how their chosen profession can impact the broader world in positive ways, see concrete examples of how it can and does. These El Sistema inspired programs are a palpable example of how numerous highly trained and accomplished musicians have used their values and learning methods to improve the lives of all the children and young people in their midst. On this Mexico tour, they interacted with one of the most miraculous stories of how this philosophy is impacting tens of thousands of lives throughout the entire country of Mexico with their exchange with the breathtaking work of Esperanza Azteca. You can read about this miracle and Ben Zander’s role in supercharging the early stages of the movement in the words of Rosamund Zander in her book “Pathways to Possibility. Find it here.
Lastly, the experience of playing great works of music three, four, or more times on tour after honing them over months of work back in Boston allows the players to own these pieces in a way that can’t be equaled. They carry them in their hearts and minds throughout their lives, and they will represent the high-water mark for the preparation and performance of every work they encounter throughout their careers. One of the most compelling things about an outstanding youth orchestra’s playing is they are, first, youthful, and, second, they are falling in love with the masterpieces that they’re playing for the first time. This is nowhere more tangible than in the last performances of a tour. As I write this, I’m backstage waiting to take my seat in the audience for the BPYO’s last performance of Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 6. Without doubt every player will put their entire heart and soul into this concert, some with the bittersweet awareness that they are departing from the orchestra and that music making will never quite reach the emotional heights that they’re experiencing at that very movement. For me, I’m prepared to join them in one of the most moving musical experiences of my life as well.
So, there it is!