To mark the 80th birthday of Michael Tilson Thomas, Pentatone is releasing a deluxe collection of the compositions of this legendary conductor, composer, pianist, recording artist and teacher. It’s titled GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas.
MTT, as he is affectionately known, served as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, is now Music Director Laureate of this orchestra, and is also Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony which he co-founded in 1987. He has also held appointments with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Photo: Art Streiber
As well as conducting some of the world’s leading orchestras, MTT has won twelve Grammy Awards for his recordings. He is well known for producing projects dedicated to music education and the expansion of the concert experience. His television work includes numerous televised performances and series for the BBC, PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts and he has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s Nightline and PBS’s American Masters. Also an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, he is a member of the American Academies of Arts & Sciences and Arts & Letters, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, a Peabody Award winner and a Kennedy Center Honoree.
Photo: Brigitte Lacombe
MTT’s musical achievements span a wide-ranging repertoire – from Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Stravinsky – and include collaborations with artists ranging from Sarah Vaughan to Metallica. In 1991, on commission from UNICEF, MTT composed a work From the Diary of Anne Frank, featuring Audrey Hepburn as the narrator. It was performed by MTT and the New World Symphony in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF. The work was later recorded by SFS Media and won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium. The following September, Avie Records released an album of solo piano works performed by John Wilson, including the world première recording of Michael Tilson Thomas’s Upon Further Reflection, and in 2023, You Come Here Often?, recorded by Yuja Wang and Teddy Abrams for DG, won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
This set of CDs spans more than five decades of this supremely talented musician’s composing life, featuring 18 works from première recordings to remastered archival recordings available for the first time, plus an extensive booklets of the composer’s notes, original essays, and a timeline of archival photos.
As well as the San Francisco and New World symphonies, the box set features artists such as Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Sasha Cooke, Isabel Leonard, Audra McDonald, Edwin Outwater, Pat Posey, Paula Robison, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, John Wilson and Bay Brass.
All proceeds from GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas will be donated to brain cancer research at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center.
Michael Tilson Thomas says: “There are two key times in an artist’s life. The first is inventing yourself. The second, the harder part, is going the distance. How do you sustain the vision, make it grow, and share it? To be an artist means to have the courage for rebirth and growth. It’s never ending.“
Also never ending, it seems, are the accolades – Gramophone has just announced MTT as the winner of its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. According to Editor Martin Cullingford, “His legacy lies not just in a remarkable recording catalogue, but in the fact that there are works of music cherished by so many largely thanks to his advocacy, and that there are audience members who might never have been drawn to classical music in the first place were it not for his belief that everyone has the potential to be so.”
Later in the year, two additional box sets of Michael Tilson Thomas’s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Sony are scheduled for release.
Michael Tilson Thomas’ next appearance will be with the London Symphony and Chorus on October 20th and 23rd in Mahler’s Symphony No 2 Resurrection, followed by a performance on November 14th with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus when he will lead Beethoven’s Symphony No 9. Further appearances can be found on Michael Tilson Thomas’ website where details can also be found on how to buy GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas.
Information sourced from:
San Francisco Symphony program notes
Gramophone magazine
Leave a Reply