Consider that Ben emerged from an amazingly accomplished family, lived in his boyhood years with renowned musicians Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and Imogen Holst, and traveled around Europe with world-class cellist, Gaspar Cassadó! After a slow start, a close friendship sprung up between Ben and me too, as has happened with many of the musicians included in Intimate Conversations, all following my approach to them as people, not as icons. Combine that with Ben’s many years as a now-retired professor at the Conservatory a bestselling author of the book, The Art of Possibility, with his former wife Rosamund Zander and his many contributions to the Boston community, with his incredible youth, and you have a true-life story stronger than fiction. Both orchestras are rated worldwide as excellent. Under the same roof is the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, where talented adult musicians find a home. That celebrated assemblage demonstrates Ben’s lifelong commitment to the development of young people as musicians, and as people invested in improving the world around them. A case in point is his feat of organizing and conducting the now-renowned Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. While one would never describe Ben as modest, one would have no hesitancy in describing him as a great man. Along the way, Ran and my wife, Lois, became fast friends.īen Zander is the opposite of Ran in many ways. Through him I entered into a social circle of musicians at the New England Conservatory of Music, including such notables as Eden MacAdam-Somer (who is a chapter in Intimate Conversations), and Hankus Netsky, co-chairs succeeding Ran at the head of the Improv Department at NEC Eden’s husband, trombonist, Aaron Hartley and others. From the start we did become good friends. Our conversation, and another in later years assembling my current book, Intimate Conversations: Face to Face With Matchless Musicians, revealed the manifold talents and personal characteristics that make this modest polymath a cultural resource and a warm and generous friend to many. Ran made no objection, and we conversed easily as two friends might. I did that in a way natural to me by approaching Ran as a person rather than a celebrity, and asking him somewhat prying questions another might not, as well as offering my own views as we went along. I met Ran almost twenty years ago in my early years as a writer when I was assigned by Oral History of American Music (OHAM) at Yale University to record a conversation with him about his life. The three men are jazz pianist, composer, and educator, Ran Blake conductor, educator, and organizer, Benjamin Zander and longtime Boston Pops conductor, and Boston Symphony violinist, the late Harry Ellis Dickson. Each of them are now joined to me in a friendship that in an earlier stage of my life could not have been imagined. You will hear about three remarkable and talented musicians, although each is different than the others. This podcast centers on friendship, and the other two facets are naturally involved in talking about friendship. The title of my upcoming memoir cites in its title the three guideposts of my life: Friendship, Inquisitiveness and Maturation. David Link, Two Jewish Brookline Guys Who Changed the WorldĪ Potpourri: Baseball, Teens, Movies, Marriage, and Politics

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