Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas is a composer, conductor, and pianist who has played an instrumental role in developing an audience for classic and contemporary music in America. He is currently Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, based in Miami Beach, Florida.

Photo: Michael Tilson Thomas, photograph by Art Streiber, https://michaeltilsonthomas.com

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About

Born in Los Angeles, Tilson Thomas’ grandparents were the founders of the Yiddish Theater in America, and both of his parents worked in films and television.

Tilson Thomas studied at the University of Southern California and at the age of 19 was appointed Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. While holding this position, Tilson Thomas worked with several contemporary composers, including Aaron Copland, to give premieres of their works in Los Angeles.

Tilson Thomas had his big break as a conductor in 1969. While he was serving as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a post he had taken that same year, he was called upon to fill in for Music Director William Steinberg mid-concert. Thus Tilson Thomas’ career as a conductor was launched, and he subsequently held positions at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Principal Guest Conductor), Buffalo Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

As part of Tilson Thomas’ efforts to reach out to younger audiences and musicians, Tilson Thomas conducted the Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic from 1971-1977. He also founded the New World Symphony in 1988, a full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians from the finest conservatories in the practical orchestral field.

Tilson Thomas is also a distinguished composer. He has set the texts of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anne Frank.

–Christie Finn

Related Information

Songs

Videos

Recordings

A Certain Slant of Light

(Aaron Copland, Jake Heggie and Michael Tilson Thomas)

2018

To The Soul - Poetry Of Walt Whitman

(Ernst Bacon, Leonard Bernstein, Henry T. Burleigh, Gerald Busby, Philip Dalmas, Charles Ives, Charles Naginski, Ned Rorem, Robert Strassburg, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kurt Weill, Elinor Remick Warren and Walt Whitman)

1997

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