For those who keep score, three stolen scores has the Boston music community rocked.
"It was a catastrophe," Alfonso Piacentini, assistant conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, said Tuesday. "That moment was just catastrophic."
This all started on Nov. 5, when Philharmonic Conductor Benjamin Zander's car was stolen from in front of his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some of his belongings were located in Boston's Allston neighborhood, and after driving around, Piacentini located Zander's car.
The relief was short-lived — three well-marked scores, a reflection of Zander's decades as a conductor, were missing from the car.
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"It is hours and hours and hours and decades of work that he has gone into, and of course it is really difficult to have it happen so close to the performance," said Elisabeth Christensen, managing director of the Philharmonic. "He has been preparing the orchestra for this performance since September with these scores, and now, we have just two more rehearsals before he has to perform and he is starting from scratch with these scores."
Since then, police in Cambridge have been conducting an investigation.
"It is very personal, and because it is, we want to make sure we get it back to this owner," said Jeremy Warnick, director of communications and media relations for the Cambridge Police Department.
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Since it happened, the Philharmonic has turned to social media, hoping someone will find these items. In the meantime, the Philharmonic and Zander are preparing another score, knowing one way or another, the show must go on.
"He has had this for years, decades probably, and the loss of grappling and dealing with the issues of the score are in the notes you write in," Piacentini said. "He doesn't care about the car, he wants those scores back."
