Michael Tilson Thomas (December 21, 1944 – April 22, 2026) was an American conductor, composer, pianist and music pedagogue. He was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1971 to 1979. He founded the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1987, serving as artistic director until 2022 and then as artistic director laureate. Thomas was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1995, and then music director of the San Francisco Symphony until 2020. He conducted a wide repertoire of music, with a focus on the works by Gustav Mahler and of contemporary American music; he was the first to record some works by Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, and Steve Reich. Thomas appeared on television in the Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic and hosted the Keeping Score series. He collaborated with popular artists including Elvis Costello and Metallica.
His compositions include From the Diary of Anne Frank (1990), Shówa/Shoáh (1995) for the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Poems of Emily Dickinson (2002), and Meditations on Rilke (2019). He was the subject of the American Masters documentary Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is.
Life and career
Thomas was born on December 21, 1944, in Los Angeles, California, Thomas, a Broadway stage manager and a middle school history teacher, respectively. He was the grandson of Yiddish theater stars Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, who performed in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan. The family talent goes back to Thomas's great-grandfather, Pincus, an actor and playwright, and before that to a long line of cantors; his father, Theodor Herzl Tomashefsky (Ted Thomas), was also a poet and painter. Thomas studied piano with John Crown and composition and conducting with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, where he graduated from the USC Thornton School of Music '67 and MM '76. As a student of Friedelind Wagner, Thomas was a Musical Assistant and Assistant Conductor at the Bayreuth Festival. As a young man, he was driving and heard music "so powerful I pulled over to the side of the road." It was James Brown singing "Cold Sweat". He credited Brown with influencing his sense of rhythm.
Boston, Buffalo, New York, and Los Angeles
From 1968 to 1994, Thomas was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival seven times. After winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood in 1969, he was named assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That same year, he made his conducting debut with the orchestra, replacing an unwell William Steinberg mid-concert and thereby coming to international recognition at the age of 24. He stayed with the Boston Symphony as principal guest conductor until 1974 and made several recordings with the orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon. He was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1971 to 1979, and recorded for Columbia Records with the orchestra.
thumb|Thomas conducting the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert, 1977.
Between 1971 and 1977, Thomas also conducted the series of Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic as well as the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra based in Los Angeles. From 1981 to 1985, he was principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. During a 1985 performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl, a (police) helicopter flew over the venue, disrupting the concert. Thomas temporarily left the stage. In 2007, he returned to the Hollywood Bowl, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic again in the Mahler Eighth, asking jokingly, "Now where were we?"
New World Symphony
thumb|Tilson Thomas with Audrey Hepburn in 1990
In 1987, Thomas founded the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, an orchestral academy for young musicians whose stated mission is "to prepare highly-gifted graduates of distinguished music programs for leadership roles in orchestras and ensembles around the world". He played an instrumental role in the development of the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center in Miami Beach, which opened in 2011, and maintained a relationship with the organization as Artistic Director Laureate. (The two had personal history: Gehry sometimes baby-sat for Thomas when both were growing up in Los Angeles.
San Francisco
Thomas became the San Francisco Symphony's 11th music director in 1995. He made his debut with the orchestra in January 1974 conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 9. During his first season with the San Francisco Symphony, Thomas included a work by an American composer on nearly every one of his programs, including the first performances ever by the orchestra of music by Lou Harrison, and culminated with "An American Festival", a two-week focus on American music. During his tenure, the orchestra began to issue recordings on its own SFS Media label. He conducted Elvis Costello's Il Sogno.
thumb|Thomas conducting [[Symphony No. 9 (Mahler)|Mahler's Ninth at Carnegie Hall, 2019]]
In April 2005, he conducted the Carnegie Hall premiere of The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, partly as a tribute to his own grandparents. Other American orchestras have since performed this production, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, New World Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony. It has also been recorded for future broadcast on PBS.
Thomas collaborated with YouTube in 2009 to help create the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra whose members were selected from 30 countries based on more than 3,000 video auditions on YouTube. The orchestra, with soloists such as Mason Bates, Measha Brueggergosman, Joshua Roman, Gil Shaham, Yuja Wang, and Jess Larsen, participated in a classical music summit in New York City at the Juilliard School over three days. The event culminated in a live concert at Carnegie Hall on April 15. The concert was later made available on YouTube. On March 20, 2011, Thomas also conducted the "YTSO2" (YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2) in Sydney.
In October 2017, the orchestra announced that Thomas would conclude his tenure as its music director at the close of the 2019–2020 season, and subsequently take the title of music director laureate.
Thomas was featured on the 2020 album S&M2 with thrash metal band Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony. Thomas only conducted during the performance of "Scythian Suite, Opus 20 II: The Enemy God and the Dance of the Dark Spirits", "The Iron Foundry, Opus 19", and "The Unforgiven III", and then conducted "Enter Sandman" before moving to keyboards and leaving Edwin Outwater conducting the symphony orchestra.
As educator
Thomas was also devoted to music education. He led a series of education programs titled Keeping Score which offers insight into the lives and works of great composers, and led a series of Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. He founded the New World Symphony in Miami in 1987. Thomas led two incarnations of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which brings young musicians from around the world together for a week of music making and learning.
Thomas served as president of the Tomashefsky Project, a $2 million undertaking formed in 2017 that is intended to record and preserve his grandparents' theatrical achievements, and was on the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
Due to health concerns, Thomas announced on March 2, 2022, that he would be stepping down as the artistic director of the New World Symphony and instead serve as the artistic director laureate.
Personal life
Thomas lived in San Francisco. He married Joshua Robison on November 2, 2014. The two were together for 50 years, having first met as 11 and 12 year-olds in a junior high orchestra. Robison died on February 22, 2026, at the age of 79.
On August 6, 2021, Thomas disclosed publicly for the first time that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, called glioblastoma multiforme.
On January 9, 2022, Thomas returned to his hometown to conduct—for the first time since his cancer disclosure—the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Despite the small audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall due to more than 43,000 newly-diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, Thomas was greeted warmly. He proceeded to lead a concert of works by Gabriel Fauré, Thomas's own Meditations on Rilke—wistful reflections on life and death as the composer turned 75 in 2019—and to conclude, a performance of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony. In 2023, Thomas was featured in the American Masters documentary Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is.
In February 2025, Thomas announced that his brain tumor had returned. His final public appearance was on April 26, 2025, when he conducted the San Francisco Symphony in a belated 80th birthday celebration concert.
On April 22, 2026, Thomas died of the disease at his home in San Francisco, at the age of 81.
Film and television
Thomas first appeared on television in the Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, airing from 1971 to 1977. He regularly appeared on PBS, in broadcasts from 1972 through 2008. Eight episodes of WNET's Great Performances series featured him. He also appeared on Japan's NHK and the BBC many times in the last three decades.
In 1976, Thomas appeared alongside Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in a prime-time special, Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals, a combined live action/animated broadcast of The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns.
In 2011, he hosted a concert stage show celebrating his grandparents and the music of American Yiddish theatre The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, which aired in 2012 on the PBS series Great Performances.
Thomas hosted the Keeping Score television series, nine one-hour documentary-style episodes and eight live-concert programs, which began airing nationally on PBS stations in early November 2006. He and the San Francisco Symphony have examined the lives and music of Gustav Mahler, Dmitri Shostakovich, Charles Ives, Hector Berlioz, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
; Keeping Score discography He was renowned for his interpretation of Mahler's music, recording all nine symphonies and other major orchestral works with the San Francisco Symphony. These recordings have been released on the high-fidelity audio format Super Audio CD on the San Francisco Symphony's own recording label.
His recordings include:
{| class="sortable wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"
!Year
!Orchestra
!Composer
!Work (and soloists, if any)
!Label
|-
|1991
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Adam
|Music from Giselle
|Sony
|-
|1990
|London Symphony Orchestra, Ambrosian Singers
| rowspan="4" |Beethoven
|Late Choral Music
| rowspan="2" |CBS Masterworks
|-
|1986
|Orchestra of St. Luke's
|Symphony No. 3 <br />Contredanses, WoO 14
|-
|2010
|San Francisco Symphony
|Symphony No. 5 <br />Piano Concerto No. 4 (Emanuel Ax)
|SFS Media
|-
|1999
|English Chamber Orchestra
|Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale"
|Sony Classical
|-
|1996
|London Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="2" |Bernstein
|Arias and Barcarolles (Von Stade, Hampson), Suite from A Quiet Place and Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
| rowspan="2" |DG
|-
|1993
|London Symphony Orchestra, London Voices
|On the Town (Daly, von Stade, Lear, Laine, McLaughlin, Hampson, Garrison, Ollmann, Ramey)
|-
|1991
|London Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="2" |Brahms
|Serenade No. 1<br />Tragic Overture<br />Academic Festival Overture
| rowspan="2" |Sony Classical
|-
|1992
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Serenade No. 2 / Haydn Variations / Hungarian Dances
|-
|2002
|
|Cage<br />Stravinsky<br />Reich
|Three Dances<br />The Rite of Spring <br />Four Organs
|Angel Records
|-
|1996
|San Francisco Symphony
|Copland
|Piano Concerto<br />Orchestra Variations<br />Short Symphony<br />Symphonic Ode (with Garrick Ohlsson)
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|1972
|Boston Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="3" |Debussy
|Images<br />Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
|DG
|-
|1993
|London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
|Le Martyre de saint Sébastien (with McNair, Murray, Stutzman, Caron)
|Sony Classical
|-
|2007
|Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players
|Cello Sonata (Eskin, Thomas) <br />Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (Dwyer, Fine, Hobson)<br />Violin Sonata (Silverstein, Thomas)
|DG
|-
|1999
|New World Symphony
|Feldman
|Coptic Light (Cohen, Feinberg)
|Argo
|-
|1976
|Columbia Jazz Band,<br />New York Philharmonic
| rowspan="3" |Gershwin
|Rhapsody in Blue (composer, piano roll)<br />An American in Paris
|Columbia
|-
|1990
|Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
|Gershwin Live! (Sarah Vaughan, Thomas)
|Sony Classical
|-
|1984
|Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
|Rhapsody in Blue (Thomas)<br />Second Rhapsody<br />Preludes for Piano Promenade<br />Unpublished Piano Works
|Columbia
|-
|1970
|Boston Symphony Orchestra
|Ives<br />Ruggles<br />Piston
|Three Places in New England<br />Sun-treader<br />Symphony No. 2
|DG
|-
|1991
|Chicago Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="3" |Ives
|Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4
|Sony Classical
|-
|2002
|San Francisco Symphony
|An American Journey
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|1990
|Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
|Holiday Symphony<br />The Unanswered Question (Herseth)<br />Central Park in the Dark
| rowspan="3" |Sony Classical
|-
|1992
|London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
|Janáček
|Glagolitic Mass (Benackova, Palmer, Lakes, Kotscherga)<br />Sinfonietta
|-
|1974
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Mahavishnu
|Apocalypse (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
|-
| rowspan="6" |2004
|San Francisco Symphony
| rowspan="13" |Mahler
|Symphony No. 1
| rowspan="9" |SFS Media
|-
|San Francisco Symphony and Chorus
|Symphony No. 2
|-
|San Francisco Symphony and Chorus,<br />Pacific Boychoir,<br />San Francisco Symphony Girls Chorus
|Symphony No. 3<br />Kindertotenlieder (DeYoung)
|-
| rowspan="3" |San Francisco Symphony
|Symphony No. 4 (Claycomb)
|-
|Symphony No. 5
|-
|Symphony No. 6
|-
|2005
|San Francisco Symphony
|Symphony No. 7
|-
|2009
|San Francisco Symphony and Chorus,<br /> Pacific Boychoir <br />San Francisco Girls Chorus
|Symphony No. 8
|-
|2005
| rowspan="2" |San Francisco Symphony
|Symphony No. 9
|-
|2008
|Das klagende Lied (Shaguch, DeYoung, Moser, Lieferkus)<br />Das Lied von der Erde (Skelton, Hampson)
|RCA Red Seal
|-
|1990
|London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, <br />South End Boys
|Symphony No. 3<br /> Rückert Lieder (Baker)
|Sony Classical
|-
|1999
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Symphony No. 7
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|2010
|San Francisco Symphony
|Songs with Orchestra (Graham, Hampson)
|SFS Media
|-
|1998
|New World Symphony
|New World Jazz
|New World Jazz
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|1997
|London Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="2" |Prokofiev
|Symphonies Nos. 1 & 5
|Sony Classical
|-
|2004
|San Francisco Symphony
|Romeo and Juliet
|RCA Red Seal
|-
|1991
|Hungarian State Orchestra
|Puccini
|Tosca (Éva Marton, José Carreras, Pons, Tajo)
| rowspan="2" |Sony Classical
|-
|1989
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Ravel
|Ma mère l'Oye<br />Boléro<br />Pavane pour une infante défunte<br />Pièce en forme de Habañera<br />L'Éventail de Jeanne<br />Fanfare
|-
|1990
|Colorado Quartet, <br />Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra
| rowspan="2" |Reich
|The Desert Music
| rowspan="2" |Nonesuch
|-
|1994
|London Symphony Orchestra
|The Three movements
|-
|1980
|Buffalo Philharmonic
|Ruggles
|Complete Music of Carl Ruggles
|Columbia
|-
|1971
|Boston Symphony Orchestra
|Schumann<br />Piston
|Violin Concerto (Paul Zukofsky)<br />Symphony No. 2
|DG
|-
|1986
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Strauss, R.
|Ein Heldenleben<br />Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche
|Columbia
|-
|1972
|Boston Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="3" |Stravinsky
|Le sacre du printemps<br />Le roi des etoiles
|DG
|-
|1997
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Stravinsky in America
|Sony Classical
|-
|1999
|San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Chorus,<br /> San Francisco Girls Chorus, <br />Ragazzi, the Peninsula Boys Chorus
|Le sacre du printemps<br />L'oiseau de feu<br />Perséphone
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|1993
|New World Symphony
|Tangazo
|Tangazo
|Argo
|-
|1970
|Boston Symphony Orchestra
| rowspan="3" |Tchaikovsky
|Symphony No. 1
|DG
|-
|1990
|Philharmonia Orchestra
|Suite No. 2<br />Suite No. 4
|Sony Classical
|-
|2005
|Berliner Philharmoniker
|Violin Concerto (Joshua Bell)<br />Méditation No. 1: Souvenir d'un lieucher<br />Swan Lake: Danse russe
|RCA Red Seal
|-
|1997
|New World Symphony, BBC Singers
|Villa Lobos
|Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 4 & 5 (Fleming)<br />Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9<br />Chôros No. 5 & 10
|RCA Victor Red Seal
|-
|1990
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Weill
|The Seven Deadly Sins (Julia Migenes)<br />The Threepenny Opera
|Sony Classical
|-
|2013
|London Symphony Orchestra
|Saint-Saëns
|Cello Concertos No. 1 & 2 (Steven Isserlis)
|RCA Red Seal
|-
|1974
|Studio cast
|Stanley Silverman, Richard Foreman
|Elephant Steps--A Fearful Radio Show (pop-opera)
|Columbia
|}
Composition
Thomas's compositions include From the Diary of Anne Frank (1990), Shówa/Shoáh (1995, memorializing the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima), Poems of Emily Dickinson (2002), and Urban Legend (2002).
Orchestra
- From the Diary of Anne Frank (1990) for narrator and orchestra
- Shówa/Shoáh (1995)
- Agnegram (1998)
- Whitman Songs (1999) for vocal baritone and orchestra
- Poems of Emily Dickinson (2002) for vocal soprano and orchestra
- Urban Legend (2002) for contrabassoon and orchestra
- Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind (2016) for mezzo-soprano, 2 female back-up singers, chamber orchestra, and bar band
- Meditations on Rilke (2019) for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra
Chamber ensemble
- Street Song for Symphonic Brass (1988) for 3 C trumpets, B-flat flugelhorn, 4 horns in F, 2 trombones, bass trombone, and tuba
- Street Song for Brass Quintet (1988) for brass quintet
- Five Songs (1988) for vocal baritone and piano
- Grace (1993) for vocal soprano
- Fame, from Poems of Emily Dickinson (2001)
- Island Music (2003) for 2 solo marimba, 2 tutti marimba, and 2 percussion
- Notturno (2005) for flute and string quintet + harp (also available for flute and piano)
- Stay Together (2006) for electronics
Awards
Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium
- 2021 Conducting San Francisco Symphony, performing From the Diary of Anne Frank & Meditations on Rilke
Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance
- 2013 Conducting San Francisco Symphony, performing Adams: Harmonielehre & Short Ride in a Fast Machine
National Medal of Arts
- 2009 National Medal of Arts.
Kennedy Center Honor
- 2019 Kennedy Center Honor was presented December 8, 2019.
References
External links
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- Michael Tilson Thomas (April 16, 2001). "Making Anything Sound Good". NewMusicBox (Interview). Interviewed by Frank J. Oteri (published May 1, 2001).
- Michael Tilson Thomas interviews with the Oral History of American Music (Yale University): October 7, 1986 and March 28, 1994