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China Tour Blog #6 A Letter from Benjamin Zander
8/16/2007 12:00 PMDear members of the YPO family,
I am on the way back from a truly extraordinary two week trip to South Africa. If you go on my website you will see several blogs, with more to follow,
including some descriptions of the final three days in the bush, where we moved in amongst elephants, lions, buffalo, giraffe, wildebeast and myriads of other animals living free in the wild, with virtually no intrusion from human beings, except as awed on-lookers.
As each day of the trip went by and we interacted with one amazing person and group after another, including, incidentally, the Members of the South African Parliament, I kept thinking we MUST bring the YPO here - I know it will blow their minds, and ours too! On the final night we had a candle-light dinner in the open air, on a hill with native Africans dancing to the most intoxicating music around a huge camp fire. That evening, I started to plan the 2009 tour with the CEO of the largest grocery chain in SA.
He said he would insist that we all go on a safari to the bush, including the dinner on the hill and he said everybody must experience the amazing music and breath-taking sights that Roz and I heard and saw for the past two weeks. It began to seem like a very real possibility! The thought fills me with a profound excitement, not least because he said that he would arrange for the group to meet with Nelson Mandela, if his health permitted at that point. With nearly two years to plan, I am sure that it will be one of the greatest experiences of our lives.
I am writing about this, because it is only going to be possible if we can manage to eliminate the debt that is still outstanding from our trip to China this summer. I know that no one is obligated to contribute: the cost, after all, was made clear from the start, and the fact that it was pitched so low, so that everyone could afford it, and that there were unexpected expenses along the way is not the fault of the students who went on the tour. Also, most of them wont be going on the next tour anyway, so why should they be concerned? However the reason I sent in my promised $20,000 without hesitation and that twenty of you, including our beloved scribe Richard Dyer, have already sent in their $250 is because we all feel that the value of these experiences is incalculable.
Perhaps you or your son or daughter will have moved on from YPO, but the memories of that amazing trip will not fade for a very long time, and it is likely that all of us who experienced it will be changed forever. The Conservatory is unfortunately not one of those institutions that can afford to underwrite these bi-annual ventures for the youth orchestras. It would be all too easy for the administration, still facing an outstanding deficit of $25K from this tour, to say that we will simply have to stop touring. And yet, imagine if we hadn't gone on this life-changing adventure? Imagine if this 26 year program of international touring would be curtailed.
Jo Ann Chung came up with idea of spreading the deficit evenly amongst all 117 participants. Some have generously responded. I am writing to urge you all to follow suit. We went on a journey of Possibility - a journey whose underlying theme was not "what can I get away with", but rather "what can I contribute". It served us well. Every problem and challenge that we encountered was "solved" in the spirit of contribution. It pointed to a world in which, like a great orchestra, every single person plays a crucial role and every one is heard. It is my dream that those who have been privileged to participate in YPO will have come away with a deepened sense of the value of being part of something larger than themselves. A world where each voice is crucial to the glorious harmony of the whole. What an amazing thing it would be if that dream were realized by each and every person - the high school students, the college students, the chaperones and staff - contributing to the best of their ability towards the elimination of the barrier that now stands between future YPO'ers and the "experience of a lifetime" in South Africa.
Please consider this matter and let us collect all the money before we all reassemble at NEC for the new year or go onto the next stage of our lives. In this way we can start to plan in earnest for South Africa 2009! Each person who responds to this call, will receive a double CD of the China tour program.
I am excited to report that NEC's new President, Tony Woodcock, has invited YPO, in recognition of their extraordinary artistic achievements in the international sphere, to perform the first half of the concert that will mark his inauguration on Saturday October 27th. It is an unprecedented honor and will allow us to reassemble for a wonderful and fun reunion to perform Adams, Firebird and Nimrod, as well as to accompany Stefan Jackiw in the first movement of Paganini's violin concerto. We are hoping that all those in Boston and along the Eastern seaboard will be able to return to NEC for a Friday night rehearsal and the performance. Let us know as soon as possible if you can be there and if you need help with travel plans.
Warmest best wishes for a glorious year ahead
Ben Zander
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