Boston Philharmonic conductor's scores stolen ahead of concert
CAMBRIDGE - Before an orchestra hits the stage, before the musicians get their parts, there is a conductor who studies a score. Consider it a road map on how to move an ensemble through the notes on the page.
They can be hard to read, and even harder to understand. Their value is set by the hands of the conductor who decodes them.
"I think the value is probably not evident to someone who isn't in this world," said Elisabeth Christensen, managing director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.
Christensen, who has been in the role for more than a decade, said the organization's conductor had valuable scores stolen from his car.
Cambridge Police said conductor Benjamin Zanders had his car stolen from in front of his home not once, but twice, earlier in November. The police department said the keys were in the car the first time and when the car was found the scores were gone.
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra is set to perform the music from the scores that were stolen at a concert in Symphony Hall on Sunday.
"This is the first time we have had scores just go completely missing," said Christensen. "There are hundreds of hours of studying over decades invested in the markings that are in these scores. And that is what cannot be replicated by this Sunday."
The show will go on as scheduled. Zander is expected to conduct the orchestra with blank scores, without the decades of notes he had put into them.
"He even said this morning that he would have rather gotten the scores back than the car back," said Christensen.
Cambridge Police said they expect the scores could be in Boston, specifically around Allston and Brighton.
