“Home is wherever my cello is.”

Ben Zander is bringing the Boston Philharmonic and Beethoven to New York in a few weeks. I’m excited to see them in person, but it’s also live streaming. I hope you can come.

While his influence in the musical canon is legendary, Ben’s ramblings extend far into how we lead, how we live, and how we teach. The book he wrote with Rose Zander is celebrated as a classic among business/motivational books and I read it at least once a year. His TED talk is awesome and I could go on and on…

For me, the greatest learning comes from his passion as a teacher. He sees his music practice as an opportunity to enroll others on a journey, and his orchestra volunteers find that these journeys—opportunities to lean into possibility, to fail, to connect, to listen, and to be heard—change their lives.

At the heart of possibility is change. The passion for change is available to all:

The title of this post comes from one of Ben’s students. Each is asked to write about the music they are working on, their approach and the changes they have experienced. Of course, any 14-year-old could easily use GPT to compose a more professional essay, but these letters are far from typical homework for a middle school student. Instead, letters open doors to the growth, learning, and humanity we all seek.

Possibilities are wherever we look.