MichaelTilson Thomas

Conductor

About Michael

Founder & Artistic Director Laureate: New World Symphony Music Director Laureate: San Francisco Symphony Conductor Laureate: London Symphony Orchestra

Michael Tilson Thomas is the Founder and Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony Orchestra, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.

He has won eleven Grammys for his recordings, is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts (the highest honour for artistic excellence in the United States), which was presented to him by President Barack Obama, and is an Officer in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. For his lifetime artistic achievements, he was selected to receive the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors.

As a guest conductor, he works with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra.

Mr. Tilson Thomas’s compositions are published by G. Schirmer. In 1991, he and the New World Symphony were presented in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF in the United States, featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator of his work From the Diary of Anne Frank, which was commissioned by UNICEF. In August 1995, he led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the premiere of his composition Shówa/Shoáh, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. His vocal music includes settings of poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, which were premiered by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, respectively. In 2016, Yuja Wang premiered his piano piece You Come Here Often?

Mr. Tilson Thomas co-founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, a postgraduate orchestral academy dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music. The New World Symphony has long been at the forefront of developments in the arts and in education. Since 2011, the campus of the New World Symphony has been the technologically advanced Frank Gehry–designed New World Center.

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Chief Executive

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Phillippa Cole

Senior Vice President Opus 3 Artists

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Dora Michael

Assistant Artist Manager

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Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

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Season Highlights

Oct 2023

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 San Francisco Symphony San Francisco Symphony Chorus

Nov 2023

Symphony Center Orchestra Hall

Mozart: German Dance K. 605 Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major K488 Brahms (arr. Schoenberg): Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor Op. 25 Chicago Symphony Orchestra Orion Weiss, piano

Photos

News

Press

MTT with the LSO, Christian Tetzlaff Violin
Barbican, London
May 2023
- There is a sense that every concert the London Symphony Orchestra gets to give with its conductor laureate, Michael Tilson Thomas, is now a gift – this evening of Brahms came a little over a year after the announcement that he was being treated for an aggressive form of brain cancer. Yet if Tilson Thomas’s own dynamic energy now needs to be husbanded to some extent, this did not translate into any loss of momentum or intensity in the orchestra’s performance: small gestures – a lean towards the cellos here, a shimmy of the fingers to fade out the brass there – were enough to shape the music into the kind of long, elastic lines that make Brahms’s notes glow
  - The Guardian
  - 22 May 2023
MTT with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Jan 2023
- The final Adagio stopped time, for a full half hour. Rather than try to wring meaning from every phrase, Tilson Thomas seemed content to maintain his hypnotic slow beat and let the strings bask in the golden-hour harmony. The coda was eerily calm, with phrases, chords, and single notes suspended like thin brushstrokes on a white canvas. Tilson Thomas has long admired the modernist master Morton Feldman, who composed at the edge of silence. The final page of the Ninth came across, enthrallingly, as a prophecy of Feldman, of music’s future. Without words, Tilson Thomas was teaching one more lesson through the music that he loves.
  - The New Yorker
  - 30 January 2023
MTT conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Tanglewood, Boston
Aug 2022
- Michael Tilson Thomas had just brought the first movement of Copland’s Symphony No. 3 to a radiant close here at Tanglewood on Saturday night when applause broke out at the back of the Shed.
  - The New York Times
  - 01 September 2023
MTT with the LSO, Lukáš Vondráček piano
Barbican, London
May 2022
- There was a copy of the score on the conductor’s lectern, but MTT didn’t look at it through the first three movements. When he reached the celebrated Adagietto (think Visconti’s film of Death In Venice), he opened it, although he didn’t pay it much attention. That movement’s painful longing felt especially poignant, while the finale exuded carnivalesque vigour. The standing ovation that followed was unanimous, prolonged and utterly heartfelt.
  - The Standard
  - 16 May 2022
MTT debut with the Czech Philharmonic
Rudolfinum, Prague
Jun 2022
- The conductor was all business and the music was as vital and captivating as anything the orchestra has played this season." Schubert’s [C major Symphony] tends to dominate any program, but in many ways Copland’s [Appalachian Spring] ballet suite was more interesting, mostly because of Tilson Thomas’ expert hand. It didn’t sound like a European orchestra playing American music. It sounded like music straight from the New World, fresh and thrilling, played with the optimism and exuberance that characterizes American orchestras. Tilson Thomas’ technical skills and long experience with the piece lent it authority and depth. The orchestra’s Romantic roots gave Tilson Thomas plenty of latitude with the Schubert symphony, which he managed to make both monumental and graceful. The grace was in the close attention he paid to the wealth of fine details and a lighthearted approach that kept the music buoyant and animated, even in the percussion-heavy passages." [...] no one connects with an audience like Tilson Thomas.
  - BachTrack
  - 10 June 2022
MTT's 'Meditations on Rilke' World Premiere with the San Francisco Symphony
Davies Hall, San Francisco
Jan 2020
- To the world of musical mashups we can now add the Schubertian cowboy song, a gentle but rhythmically charged ditty full of sentiment. It’s a hybrid that already existed in theory, but it took Michael Tilson Thomas to actually conjure the thing into being. The spirits of both Schubert and Mahler infuse the beautiful fourth song in Thomas’ orchestral song cycle “Meditations on Rilke,” which had its world premiere in Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday, Jan. 9. As sung in a glowing performance by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke with the San Francisco Symphony, this was music of quiet generosity, with lyrical melodies that seemed to caress the text. Rilke’s poetry has long been a talisman for Thomas, a repository for a range of emotional responses. But the six songs of “Meditations” seem, on a first encounter, to be shaped even more directly by his catalog of personal musical reference points. As Thomas laid them out in a brief preperformance remark, these are chiefly Schubert, Mahler and Berg, all of whom play an influential role in shaping the score. But they do it with an American cast of mind, as exemplified by the burst of honky-tonk piano that opens the cycle. The populist frankness that results in some of the songs can at times sit uneasily with Rilke’s fragrant, distinctively German prosody. (Schubert is, perhaps surprisingly, a more congenial American tourist than Rilke, and Mahler actually spent significant time in New York late in life.) But when Thomas puts his own distinctive spin on the material, the results are invigorating. This is particularly true in the fifth song, “Imaginärer Lebenslauf” (“Imaginary Biography”), a duet between Cooke and baritone Ryan McKinny, who otherwise alternate songs. The song begins with a ferocious swirl of impulsive rhythmic motion, evocative of the energy and freedom of early childhood. Soon, as in the poem, complications set in — struggles, disappointment, doubt — all of which are reflected in the music without losing any of its urgency or vigor. The vocal lines intertwine with winning intricacy, and the surprise ending, a literal deus ex machina, is a doozy. Berg’s characteristic blend of Romantic ardor and angular melody is harder to pull off at second hand, and the neo-Bergian writing of the first and last songs struggled to make an effect, especially in McKinny’s somewhat tentative account. But there are other treasures scattered throughout the cycle — the crystalline text-setting of the second song, or the inventive orchestral textures that adorn most of the songs as preludes and postludes.
  - San Francisco Chronicle

Discography

MTT named Officer in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

/24 June 2020

Michael Tilson Thomas was on 22 June named an Officer in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded to distinguished artists who have made significant contributions to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world. MTT was previously honoured as a Chevalier, or Knight, in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and this promotion is in light of his ongoing contributions to the arts and culture all over the world, plus his 25 years of accomplishments as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony.

The Award ceremony, hosted by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at the Legion of Honor's Court of Honor, was attended by Consul General Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, SF Symphony President Sakurako Fisher, former SF Symphony President and CEO Nancy Bechtle, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Thomas Campbell, and President of the War Memorial Board of Trustees Thomas E. Horn.

“By promoting Michael Tilson Thomas to the rank of Officer in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France celebrates an immense artist, unanimously recognized by the Parisian public, who worked hard to promote French music composers in the United States. As a universal language, music brings people together and MTT’s work shows the essential role of culture in the Franco-American friendship.”

-Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, Consul General of France, San Francisco

MTT has conducted many of the major French orchestras and has toured France with the San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, and more. He will return to France to conduct the Orchestre de Paris in June 2021.

Read a selection of remarks delivered at the ceremony:

“On behalf of the San Francisco Symphony, I want to express my appreciation to Mayor Breed and Consul General Lebrun-Damiens for being here with us to acknowledge this incredible honor, which the French Minister of Culture has bestowed on our own Michael Tilson Thomas. The Officier des Arts and Letters recognizes people who have significantly furthered culture and the arts globally. And we at the San Francisco Symphony have been so fortunate to benefit from Michael's passion, artistry, and dedication to spreading the transformational power of music worldwide for a remarkable 25 years. . . . France holds a deeply meaningful place in my heart. It has been, and is still a home for me, and is a place that truly celebrates curiosity and creativity in the arts. No other city in the United States upholds the same values more than San Francisco. We thank the French Ministry of Culture for bestowing this great and well-deserved honor on our MTT on the occasion of the conclusion of his 25 years as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony.”

-Sakurako Fisher, President of the San Francisco Symphony

“Mayor Breed, Consul General, dear Michael, you have brought us such a joy for this last 25 years. I feel like we've been riding on a wave of beauty and of music under your leadership. You have educated us with Keeping Score. You have shown us nuances and insights into Mahler. You've refocused some of our attention on American music, American composers, and now you're training a whole new generation of artists and musicians with the New World Symphony. It is such a thrill for me to participate in this well-deserved honor of recognition by the Government of France—an acknowledgement that you so richly deserve having promoted French artists, French music, and French culture your entire career.”

-Thomas E. Horn, President of the Board of Trustees, San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

“Thank you everyone for being here today to celebrate someone who is absolutely incredible. I think about the fact that here in San Francisco, we've been able to have MTT give 25 years dedicated to the San Francisco Symphony, but also doing so much more for music in the entire world. We are so blessed and grateful for your service to San Francisco. What you have done has really put us on the map, but more importantly, what you have done has lifted our spirits with music. I know that the world is a more beautiful place because you are in it and because of what you have brought here. And again, I can't express how significant it is to have you as a part of San Francisco. Even though you have spent your 25 years at the Symphony and now you're stepping away somewhat, you're still going to be a part of our city. You're still going to be conducting here in San Francisco. You're still going to be working with the next generation of artists and conductors and musicians. And that is truly incredible.”

-London N. Breed, Mayor of the City of San Francisco

“It is truly an honor, and a great pleasure for me as the French Minister of Culture asked me to present Michael Tilson Thomas with the insignia of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters. Maestro, you have been a Knight in this order for a long time and you know well the importance France gives this distinction. In the United States and beyond you have made a profound impact upon the lives of many. Through your talent and your personality, you have transmitted your passion to thousands of musicians and audiences.

We very much value the relationship that you and the San Francisco Symphony developed with France. The Mayor mentioned the concert after the fire at Notre-Dame, and we will never forget the solidarity you showed with Paris. The Symphony immediately proposed to perform in these concerts, by which San Francisco showed that Sister Cities are stronger together. You should have been performing in Lyon and Paris this spring, but sadly, these concerts could not take place because of the health crisis. But this award that France gives you today is an invitation to come back as often as possible to our country so that we can continue to share creative moments with you and enjoy your talent.

At the time when you prepare to leave the San Francisco Symphony after 25 fabulous years, we wish Joshua and you the very best. I will never forget the day when both of you welcomed me backstage [at Davies Symphony Hall] and I discovered that a conductor could be welcoming, talkative, and relaxed! Today, we are awarding the Arts and Letters to a dear friend. A friend of the arts, a friend of France. We are celebrating someone who has continually supported artistic exchanges, relentlessly expanding cultural horizons, and supporting new generations of musicians and music lovers. It is to express our admiration and recognition that we present you with the insignia of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters, Michael Tilson Thomas.”