Every concert program of the San Francisco Symphony features at least one American composer. American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas – known among connoisseurs as MTT – set out this line when he took over from Herbert Blomstedt as chief conductor of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995. Thomas invariably linked classics from the symphonic canon with compositions by Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich and many of Charles Ives, whom he called America’s unruly pioneer and prophet of music. Thomas also achieved great success with Mahler: the complete recording of Mahler’s symphonies and orchestral songs (2001-2009) yielded seven Grammys. In the quarter century that Thomas led the San Francisco Symphony, it grew into a versatile orchestra with international appeal.
Thomas was born in Los Angeles in 1944 into an artistic family. His grandparents came from the Yiddish theater world in which modern Broadway has its roots, and both his parents worked in the film world. Thomas envisioned a life in music at a young age and studied piano, composition and conducting at the University of Southern California. In his student years he was a protégé of Leonard Bernstein and worked with composers such as Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland.
1969 was a decisive year: Thomas won the Koussevitsky Prize for young conductors at the renowned classical music festival Tanglewood and replaced the ill chief conductor William Steinberg as assistant conductor halfway through a concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This put him in the international spotlight. He became principal guest conductor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic and was principal conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra.
Race storyteller
Always young at heart, Thomas was known for his commitment to music education and participation. As a born storyteller, he enjoyed addressing his audience from the conductor’s podium. In the 1970s, succeeding Leonard Bernstein, he conducted and presented the New York Philharmonic’s televised Young People’s Concerts. In 1987, he founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, an orchestra academy that prepares graduate musicians for work as orchestra members. Thomas was in charge until 2022. In 2009 and 2011 he organized the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra project in which young musicians worldwide could audition online.
The focus of Thomas’ activities in the Netherlands lies in the 1980s, when he regularly performed with the Concertgebouw Orchestra with twentieth-century repertoire. At the beginning of this century, his name was circulating as a possible successor to Riccardo Chailly as chief conductor of the orchestra. That post was eventually filled by the Latvian Mariss Jansons (1943-2019).
As a composer, Thomas leaves behind a modest oeuvre. He composed in an eclectic style with theatrical influences, complex rhythms and a wide range of orchestral textures. Commissioned by Unicef, he composed based on an idea by Audrey Hepburn From the Diary of Anne Frank (1990), a melodrama in the form of symphonic variations for narrator and orchestra. The work was translated into several languages. Thomas himself conducted the Dutch premiere in 1995 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Michael Tilson Thomas died on April 22 at the age of 81.
