This evening, I will be attending a concert at the Los Angeles Philharmonic where conductor/composer Michael Tilson Thomas will lead the orchestra in the first of three performances of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.
This would put me on a path to have scene MTT, as he is commonly known, leading an orchestra at least two dozen times. Given that he has been battling brain cancer, I am taking every possible opportunity to see him. Let me explain why.
When I was five-year-old we had an organ in the house. My father apparently played it a bit, but it had become neglected and was occupying space. My mother proclaimed, “Someone is going to learn to play that organ or we’re getting rid of it.”
My sister had just been born, my brother was 3 and I was five. Doing the math, it become painfully obvious that I was the target of that comment. So, to music lessons I went.
While I enjoyed the positive attention I got whenever a lesson went well or I performed at a recital, I began to grow weary of music and music lessons by the time I was ten.
Enter Michael Tilson Thomas who, beginning in 1971, was hosting the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts. I was able to see those broadcasts and it gave me renewed purpose in studying music. The generation before me had Leonard Bernstein. I had Michael Tilson Thomas.
I looked forward to each broadcast so I could get more inspiration and to hear more music. Tilson Thomas made me want to study music and do better at the piano.
Until I didn’t…
It wasn’t that I lost interest in what Tilson Thomas was offering. It was that I realized the dream I was chasing wasn’t my own.
But that passion for classical music (and frankly music of all genres) has never waned. Have you heard the incredible live recording Tilson Thomas, the Los Angeles Philaharmonic and Sarah Vaughan did of Gershwin’s music? If not, you must check it out.
If anything, by choosing not to make it my career, it has only deepened. It’s one of the reasons I launched Cultural Attaché – to hopefully interest and inspire others to explore all that the performing arts has to offer.
I’ve never had the chance to meet or interview Michael Tilson Thomas. I expect that the opportunity to do so is not likely.
Whenever I would meet someone who has worked with Tilson Thomas, I would ask for stories about those collaborations. One such friend, Chris Van Ness, was at USC at the same time as MTT. He told me about musicals where MTT was the pianist.
Through interviews with musicians, I would hear tidbits about him as a conductor. What he is like off-stage. His deep passion for music and more.
That passion has been abundantly clear in every performance I’ve ever seen of his. Whether it was Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra or a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 or some of his own music (notably Meditations on Rilke.)
It is my profound hope that Michael Tilson Thomas knowns the incredible impact he’s had, not just on my own life, but on millions of others who found his knowledge and communication skills invaluable throughout the years.
He is quoted as having said, “The world changes when there’s music in it.” My world changed because MTT was in it. For that I will be forever grateful.
Thank you, Michael Tilson Thomas. I’ll see you tonight.
Main Photo: Michael Tilson Thomas (Photo by Deborah Robison/Courtesy 21C Media Group)