Michael Tilson Thomas

Being an American musician means being adventurous. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#american #being #means #musician

I can't do pieces I only admire technically. I have to feel some direct contact with them. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#contact #direct #direct contact #feel #i

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

#being #coach #conductor #director #editor

But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#composers #find #i #i think #living

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. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#architecture #classical #classical music #does #each

Conductors are performers. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#performers

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

#certain #concepts #demonstration #earlier #exciting

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#content #disguises #extreme #important #lack

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. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#dances #defining #defining moment #experience #grasp

If we are able to get inside the music and inhabit it convincingly enough, it will cause everyone to find each other in this new psychological space. And that's most exciting. ↗

— Michael Tilson Thomas

#cause #convincingly #each #enough #everyone