“It’s about as bad a situation as things can be,’’ Zander says.
These days, he’s left to contemplate the fallout of hiring Benjamin. Three upcoming paid speaking engagements have already been canceled.
Zander is also pained by the damage done to NEC, an institution dear to him.
“This is a nightmare for all of us,’’ he says. “I want us to all wake up and say, ‘What went wrong?’ ’’
…
Zander, 72, began teaching at NEC in 1966. He helped found the Boston Philharmonic in 1979, and, over the last two decades, has developed a profitable and high-profile gig giving leadership talks. Zander’s dynamic approach has been featured on “60 Minutes’’ and Charlie Rose, has scored him the opening speech at a World Economic Forum and, just last October, drew Sting to a rehearsal of NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in Brown Hall.
And he refuses to see only the dark side of his current situation. The mess has, he says, humbled and transformed him. Indignant at first, Zander has now publicly apologized for his lack of judgment.
The crisis, he says, allowed him to hear both the appreciative words from scores of parents, teachers, and musicians who feel NEC made a mistake in dismissing him, and the criticism from friends and family members who have helped him realize just how irresponsible it was to support Benjamin without knowing enough about the crimes.
His wife, Rosamund Zander, winces at his defensiveness in the immediate wake of the firing.
“It’s very difficult for the ego and psyche to transform when you’ve been beaten to a pulp,’’ she said. “He’s coming to a sense of responsibility or awareness that he hadn’t had before. But in order to get there, somebody came up with a two-by-four and smashed him.’’
