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
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.
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.
kids years play
When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn't walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.
mean musician adventurous
Being an American musician means being adventurous.
doe happens
What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?
alive classical-music ifs
If you're alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.
music-is composer your-favorite
You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!
vocabulary challenges thank-god
Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.
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.
musical bells pushing
It's easier to interest a conservative audience in pushing the musical boundaries than to involve a young audience used to very noisy, assertive music in something like Schubert or Bach because the further back you go, the less bells and whistles there are.
symphony focus important
But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.
diversity path recognition
The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.
journey thinking voyages
And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.
mean years wonderful
Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human.