Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

United States, Conductor
December 21, 1944

Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida.

Also known as Pianist, Composer

Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Music
- Powerful
- Unique
Part of my mission is simply that: to bring the world of the arts, particularly classical music, closer to people so they don't feel that it is something remote that they have to specially prepare themselves for, or dress up for.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- People
- World
- Missions

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

Michael Tilson Thomas
You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Music
- Favorite
- Composer
If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

Michael Tilson Thomas
Being an American musician means being adventurous.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Musician
- Adventurous
Part of my big message with all this is that if you are alive, you know all you need to know about the message of classical music, because more than any other music, it is about the way life really is.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Music
- Knows
- Messages
Pop music, which I deeply admire and wish I could play better than I can, is based on expressing one mood, one feeling at a time. Classical music is by its very nature involved with different kinds of music, constantly transforming one another, which is more akin to the way our experience of life really is.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Music
- Different
- Feelings

The big difference between human happiness and sadness? Thirty-seven freakin' vibrations.

Michael Tilson Thomas
The world changes when there's music in it.

Michael Tilson Thomas
- Music
- Changes