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I started studying with Mr. Totenberg when I was 14. My previous teacher, the esteemed Zinaida Gilels, had just passed away and insisted prior to her death that I continue my studies “only with Roman Totenberg.” When I arrived for my first lesson and rang the bell, Mr. Totenberg answered the door himself. He was impeccably dressed, wearing a suit and pocket square, had a soft understated smile, and a confident but not overbearing presence. He spoke to me in Russian though I learned he also knew Polish, English, German, French, and Italian. His studio was covered with autographed photos from the Roosevelts, famous musicians, and other prominent people. His noisy little bird observed our first meeting from a cage on the corner ...

Since 1979, Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He is known around the world as both a guest conductor and a speaker on leadership — and he’s been known to do both in a single performance. He uses music to help people open their minds and create joyful harmonies that bring out the best in themselves and their colleagues.

A leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his charisma and unyielding energy — and for his brilliant pre-concert talks.

Sue Fox of the London Sunday Times says of Zander:

“Arguably the most accessible communicator about classical music since Leonard Bernstein, Zander moves audiences with his unbridled passion and enthusiasm. ...

Most people, especially if they never took music lessons or didn’t take them seriously, think that there are only a very few careers for people with music skills: performing (usually as part of a professional orchestra or famous solo performer) or teaching music at school and/or private lessons. However, there are several more careers that have far less recognition but are at least as important, if not more so, since they serve many more people. Besides school music teachers, college professors, private music teachers, and performers, here are some other careers connected to music:

Piano tuners and technicians, which are still needed since millions of people still have acoustic pianists, especially large schools, churches, and some ...

Destabilize a triad with an augmented fourth in the bass, and you're ready to tell one hell of a story. As a composer, that's what I think of when I think of Marc Blitzstein. That, and the tightly-woven web of friendship and talent that made up the generation of serious composers still most-revered by American concert music audiences.

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One rainy November 1980 day Karlos Moser, then head of the opera program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was an undergraduate music major, and I were working through some songs that I had contributed to a review he was concocting. Karlos had cast my older brother Kevin as Ben Hubbard in his production of Blitzstein's Regina during the late 70s. It had been my introduction ...

Late on a November 2011 night in Chicago, I leaned back in my chair and looked out over Lake Michigan from my aerie at the Renaissance after having had drinks with three of my former Chicago pupils. All stand-up, ambitious, talented chaps who've banded together to found the Chicago Composer's Orchestra. Earlier that day, I attended a performance of New York Storiesat the conservatory featuring the Chicago Opera Theater young artists who would play the larger roles in their production the next year of Amelia.

Walter Isaacson's just-published Steve Jobs biography slipped from my hand to the floor as I nodded off. Leaning forward to pick it up and set it on the side table, I opened at random to the page describing how Jobs as a ...

Maybe it is because I’m more or less at the mid-point of a Brahms cycle with the Surrey Mozart players, but right now, I feel like I’m orbiting planet Brahms. 2012 is looking like a Brahms year for Ken, and I like that a lot.

I’ve been accumulating some morsels of Brahmsian prejudice that I’ve wanted to share here.

1-    I really don’t like the Schoenberg arrangement of the opus 25 no. 1 Piano Quartet. I like Schoenberg. I like the G minor Piano Quartet. I like Schoenberg’s arrangements of the Emperor Waltz and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, but I’ve never warmed to what Schoenberg reputedly called Brahms’s Symphony no. 5. I heard it again on the radio last week, ...