Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomasis an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth21 December 1944
CountryUnited States of America
mean addresses doe
But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.
music world
The world changes when there's music in it.
trust years san-francisco
The first year I started in San Francisco, there was an American work on every program and there's been a lot of music by living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me.
song kids simple
I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.
summer song religious
In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs.
years europe pieces
When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.
nature real trying
They are representations of many shared hours of collaboration between us all. That's the real nature of the relationship the orchestra and I are trying to build.
imagination groups sock
This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off - what more can I say?
real years different-experiences
The real deep text of music and the whole reason that it has continued with the profundity and urgency that it has for over a thousand years, has to do with what the notes say, what the notes witness, different experiences of hope or doubt that people are able to distill and encode and pass on in this way.
moving mean understanding
But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don't have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.
important volume disguise
Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.
communication experience together
But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.