Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomasis an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth21 December 1944
CountryUnited States of America
alive way messages
Part of my big message with all this is that if you are alive, you know all you need to know about the message of classical music, because more than any other music, it is about the way life really is.
vocabulary challenges thank-god
Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.
music-is composer your-favorite
You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!
alive classical-music ifs
If you're alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.
doe happens
What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?
lonely people together
A conundrum of music is that music brings people together, yet to become a skilled musician involves a certain amount of lonely time in which you're just figuring it out, practicing.
communication experience together
But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.
important volume disguise
Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.
imagination groups sock
This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off - what more can I say?
nature real trying
They are representations of many shared hours of collaboration between us all. That's the real nature of the relationship the orchestra and I are trying to build.
years europe pieces
When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.
summer song religious
In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs.
trust years san-francisco
The first year I started in San Francisco, there was an American work on every program and there's been a lot of music by living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me.
music world
The world changes when there's music in it.