Earlier in my life, I performed a lot of music. Some of it because I felt it was a demonstration, or a representation of certain intellectual concepts that were very exciting and important. — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share Image
If we are able to get inside the music and inhabit it convincingly enough, it will cause everyone to find each other in this… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor,… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
You know, they were returning to the language of the people and trying to use musical language, particularly as Copland did to create a… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
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… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
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 Copy Share
Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human. — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is! — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
I can't do pieces I only admire technically. I have to feel some direct contact with them. — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
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… — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off - what more can I say? — Michael Tilson Thomas Copy Share
