Michael Tilson Thomas

A renowned American conductor, composer and pianist specializing in 20th-century American music, Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and London Symphony before his appointment in 1995 to the San Francisco Symphony. Born in Los Angeles on December 21, 1944, he studied composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, as well as piano, harpsichord and conducting. A student of Friedelind Wagner, he made his debut as assistant conductor at the Bayreuth Festival in 1966, and two years later won the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood. After conducting the Youth Orchestra (1968-1969), Michael Tilson Thomas was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, then associate conductor and principal guest conductor. From 1971 to 1980, he was at the helm of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (New York State), where he also taught conducting. A leading specialist in twentieth-century American repertoire, he recorded compositions by George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Charles Ives, alongside classical and romantic European works. Initiator of the Young People's Concerts for young audiences with the New York Philharmonic (1971-1977), he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1981-1985), and in 1987 founded the New World Symphony, an orchestra of young musicians based in Miami. The increasingly popular American conductor went on to become Music Director of the London Symphony (1988-1995), then of the San Francisco Symphony (1995-2020), with whom he recorded symphonies by Beethoven and Mahler on the SFS Media label. After collaborating with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and John McLaughlin on the albums Apocalypse (1974) and The Mediterranean (1990), and Elvis Costello on Il Sogno (2004), he founded the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in 2009. The creator of contemporary works by Knussen, Matthews, Reich, Takemitsu, McMillan, Holloway, Mackay and Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas has won a dozen Grammy Awards. He was successively awarded the Peabody Award (2007), the National Medal of Arts (2009) and the Kennedy Center Honor (2012). In 2022, illness forced him to step down as Music Director of the New World Symphony. Married in 2014 to his childhood friend Joshua Robison, Robison died in February 2026. On April 22, 2026, Michael Tilson Thomas dies of a brain tumor at the age of 81.