{"id":51009,"date":"2025-01-06T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/c6dbbbef-206c-481b-aa66-8bc049fd7409"},"modified":"2025-01-06T12:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T11:09:21","slug":"michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Tilson Thomas: why a terminal cancer diagnosis won’t stop me from conducting"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Monday, 06 January 2025 at 09:30 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Read on to discover all about celebrated US conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who continues make make incredible music wile living with brain cancer…<\/strong><\/p>

Who is Michael Tilson Thomas?<\/h3>
Some musicians seem incapable of ageing; and until quite recently a prime example was that most articulate, engaging and all-round alive<\/em> of conductor<\/a><\/strong>s Michael Tilson Thomas.\u00a0<\/p>
Decades passed and, with them, orchestras: the London Symphony<\/a><\/strong>, which he directed in the 1980s\/90s; then the San Francisco Symphony, which he ran from the mid-90s through to 2020. Eras changed. But MTT, as people call him, somehow didn\u2019t. He held onto a mercurially boyish grace and elegance \u2013 until, in 2022, news broke that he\u2019d contracted a particularly cruel and aggressive kind of brain cancer.<\/p>

Michael Tilson Thomas announces brain cancer diagnosis<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul>
Michael Tilson Thomas… working with cancer ‘gives me a certain focus’<\/h3>
Since then, the music world has watched and waited; and for MTT himself it\u2019s been, to say the least, an anxious time. But December 2024 brought his 80th birthday. He\u2019s still here, still working, though to a restricted schedule. He has concerts \u2013 handpicked for what he calls a \u2018gentler, quieter calendar\u2019 \u2013 booked through to spring 2025. And from the emotionally charged Mahler<\/a><\/strong> 2 he conducted at London\u2019s Barbican in October 2024 \u2013 pushing aside the chair that had been placed on the podium, and standing for the entire 90 minutes \u2013 he can still deliver. Fragile but defiant.<\/p>

Greatest conductors of all time: 30 of the finest baton wielders in classical music history<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul>
When I ask about his health he says, after a pause, \u2018There are a lot of different opinions about that. I have energy, optimism, perspective. It\u2019s only when well-meaning people are so concerned about my welfare that I can\u2019t operate in the way I\u2019m used to. It\u2019s frustrating when I want to rehearse for a number of hours, and they say: \u201cOh, that might be too strenuous.\u201d I say: \u201cLet me do my work. If it\u2019s too much, I will tell you.\u201d<\/p>
\u2018That aside, my situation gives me a certain focus. When I\u2019m asked to do things, I want to know how much actual music-making is involved rather than organisation or promotion. I want everything to be musical.\u2019<\/p>

<\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> MTT conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 with the Boston Symphony in 2018 <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Michael Tilson Thomas, the composer<\/h3> <p>And occupying much of the focus right now is his own music which, although it\u2019s generally been in the shadows of his life as a conductor, has accumulated over 40-or-more years into a serious if slowly emerging output: many of the scores are still works in progress. That the music isn\u2019t widely known hasn\u2019t discouraged him.<\/p> <p>\u2018When Mahler wanted to be buried out in a suburban cemetery rather than the central Viennese one, and people asked why, he said: \u201cThose who love me will know where to find me, for anyone else it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d In my case, many of these pieces are quite personal, soliloquies for playing in a dark chamber at night, and usually written for a particular performer. But some people are quite devoted to them, and when they tell me so, I\u2019m pleased.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Grace: a new collection of music by Michael Tilson Thomas<\/h3> <p>And finding Tilson Thomas the composer has just become considerably easier with the release of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pentatonemusic.com\/product\/grace-the-music-of-michael-tilson-thomas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">four albums on the Pentatone label<\/a><\/strong>, stylishly put together with a book of photos from his life and looking very much like a legacy statement. It\u2019s collectively called <em>Grace<\/em>, after one of his song settings, first written as a birthday tribute to one of his chief mentors, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/leonard-bernstein\">Leonard Bernstein<\/a><\/strong>. And with a self-deprecating lightness that masks the importance to him of this project, he talks about it as \u2018an opportunity I felt the need to take before I\u2019m out of here. After experiences where I\u2019ve had to question my mortality more seriously than before, there are some messages to the world I\u2019d like to get right. It\u2019s a step in that direction.\u2019<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/best-female-conductors\">The best female conductors<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Michael Tilson Thomas… the early years<\/h3> <p>That the messages are often autobiographical is no accident. And looking through the photos in the <em>Grace <\/em>release, you get a sense of a charmed life well lived from the start \u2013 born 1944 into an intellectually curious, Jewish-theatre dynasty on the American west coast, and growing up among the European emigr\u00e9s (<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/igor-stravinsky\">Stravinsky<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/arnold-schoenberg\">Schoenberg<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/erich-wolfgang-korngold\">Korngold<\/a><\/strong>\u2026) who had turned postwar Los Angeles into a starry cultural melting-pot.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/conductors-orchestra\">The conductors’ orchestra: meet the all-star orchestra made up of the world’s great conductors<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Taking on the Boston Symphony… a baptism of fire<\/h3> <p>Prodigious talent catapulted MTT into exalted circles. By his early 20s he was conducting the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/news\/andris-nelsons-appointed-music-director-boston-symphony-orchestra\">Boston Symphony Orchestra<\/a><\/strong>, initially as an assistant to the BSO\u2019s formidable music director William Steinberg, but then thrust into prominence when Steinberg was taken ill and Tilson Thomas found himself in charge of the remaining season: 37 concerts in succession.<\/p> <p>As baptisms of fire go, it was extreme. And from the photographic evidence, he looks so very young and wide-eyed to be dealing with it. What, I wondered, does he see now when he looks back at these pictures from the past?<\/p> <p>\u2018I see a young man completely filled with love and energy for music and the people who make it,\u2019 he says. \u2018And I very much connect with him \u2013 as I do with people who have that spirit whatever their age. Over the years I respect more and more the veteran musicians who\u2019ve been around a long time, frustrated or disappointed by what they\u2019ve experienced on the conveyor belt of concert giving but, in spite of everything, holding onto their first inspiration. It may not be up front and centre all the time, but it\u2019s tucked away and can be accessed. That\u2019s important.\u2019<\/p> <p>Pressed about the Herculean challenge of those Boston times, trying to master a relentless flow of new work under heavy public scrutiny and the risk of being eaten alive by seasoned players, he gives a cautious reply: \u2018I was more confident in some repertory than others, but that\u2019s how you learn. And I wasn\u2019t eaten alive. Sometimes, if you\u2019re having a difficult time, you realise it\u2019s not you people are having difficulty with: something about the situation raises other issues they have. You have to get past that.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The art of getting on with orchestras<\/h3> <p>\u2018I had a nice experience recently with the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/news\/gustavo-dudamel-announced-as-music-director-of-new-york-philharmonic\">New York Philharmonic<\/a><\/strong>, an orchestra I worked with a lot in my early twenties, and I said to them: \u201cIt\u2019s such a joy to come back to you after a long time because, back then, there was so much I wanted to share with you but didn\u2019t know enough to make things as clear and graspable as I wished. Now I think I can be much more helpful.\u201d<\/p> <p>\u2018They replied: \u201cWe always knew you had the vision, but you were searching. Now you know how, let\u2019s get it done.\u201d And we did. That a fair number of my colleagues are still pleased I\u2019ve turned up and can break into that certain space of making music always makes me proud.\u2019<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/conductor-types\">These are the 15 types of conductor. Which have you spotted?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>Relationship with players has been one of MTT\u2019s great gifts. He makes a point of knowing everybody\u2019s name. He doesn\u2019t grandstand. And his people skills developed through the 1970s when he took what seemed like a step back from the whirlwinds of Boston and New York to become music director of the not so front-line Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. It gave him time and space to work out how to build trust, with the affably relaxed and non-tyrannical didacticism that\u00a0is\u00a0arguably\u00a0his trademark.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Michael Tilson Thomas… a commitment to education and the New World Symphony<\/h3> <p>He likes telling stories \u2013 in performance, in rehearsal. And some inner-educator in his psyche lies behind his founding of what\u2019s now become a model for all training orchestras, the New World Symphony. Like so much about MTT and how he operates, it has a laid-back, semi-showbiz glamour \u2013 based in a Frank Gehry building by the seafront on Miami Beach. But at the same time it\u2019s serious, substantial. His involvement lasted 34 years, 1987 until 2022. And it\u2019s perhaps the project that defines his life \u2013 more even than the LSO and San Francisco connections, which are also beyond significant.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">MTT on opera conducting<\/h3> <p>Surprisingly, given a family background in the theatre, one core area of music that he hasn\u2019t had significant connections with is opera. And although he clearly likes to work with singers, he\u2019s impatient with the process.<\/p> <p>\u2018Opera takes a lot of time,\u2019 he says. \u2018And I\u2019ve sometimes been in the middle of rehearsing a big opera production and had to say: \u201cCan someone tell me who\u2019s in charge here?\u201d There\u2019s a bunch of people walking around and I\u2019m wondering what we\u2019re meant to be accomplishing: is it musical, dramatic, some intricacy of lighting? Sometimes people can\u2019t tell you. They don\u2019t know. And though I try to retain a sense of humour about it \u2013 because I\u2019ve always been able to retreat into that grateful and bemused place \u2013 it\u2019s not easy.\u2019<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/trouble-karajan\">Herbert von Karajan: godlike conductor, ambitious autocrat and Nazi party member<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Michael Tilson Thomas’s favourite composers… and Mahler<\/h3> <p>Easier by far is staying where he feels on surer ground: orchestral repertoire. He\u2019s always had a wider range than he gets credit for, but with a special focus on the broadly modern \u2013 from <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/claude-debussy\">Debussy<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/alban-berg\">Berg<\/a><\/strong> and Mahler to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/john-adams\">Adams<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/charles-ives\">Ives<\/a><\/strong> and (naturally) Bernstein. Of them all, his Mahler stands out. And there was peculiar poignancy about his choice of Mahler 2, the \u2018Resurrection\u2019 Symphony, for his perhaps farewell appearance with the LSO the other month: a piece that stares death in the face and looks beyond it.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MTT on Mahler\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/frCCahcNd5Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> MTT talks about his relationship with Mahler <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/which-is-the-best-mahler-symphony\">Best Mahler symphony: ranking the nine completed symphonies of Gustav Mahler<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Michael Tilson Thomas… there is still work to do<\/h3> <p>MTT is not especially religious, but he tells me he believes in God \u2013 a belief that has \u2018probably\u2019 intensified of late \u2013 and that his illness prompts a combination of rage and acceptance: \u2018From time to time it\u2019s one or the other. Like Walt Whitman said, I\u2019m both in and out of the game.\u2019<\/p> <p>Meanwhile, and more practically, \u2018there are a few big pieces I want to get finished before it\u2019s too late. Pieces I\u2019ve been thinking about for a long time. One is called <em>For the Fallen<\/em>: a collection of orchestral portraits of people who have passed but who I remember with gratitude for what they brought to me and to others. I\u2019m hoping next year it will be done: that\u2019s something to aim for. And I can tell you, it will be memorable.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Monday, 06 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about celebrated US conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who continues make make incredible music wile living with brain cancer… Who is Michael Tilson Thomas? Some musicians seem incapable of ageing; and until quite recently a prime example was that most articulate, engaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51010,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/michael-tilson-thomas-why-a-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-wont-stop-me-from-conducting.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Monday, 06 January 2025 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about celebrated US conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who continues make make incredible music wile living with brain cancer… Who is Michael Tilson Thomas? Some musicians seem incapable of ageing; and until quite recently a prime example was that most articulate, engaging…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/51009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}