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Top 25 Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes (2025 Update)

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

1. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “They are representations of many shared hours of collaboration between us all. That’s the real nature of the relationship the orchestra and I are trying to build.”

2. “They are representations of many shared hours of collaboration between us all. That’s the real nature of the relationship the orchestra and I are trying to build.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?”

3. “What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

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

4. “You can’t have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “A conundrum of music is that music brings people together, yet to become a skilled musician involves a certain amount of lonely time in which you’re just figuring it out, practicing.”

5. “A conundrum of music is that music brings people together, yet to become a skilled musician involves a certain amount of lonely time in which you’re just figuring it out, practicing.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “The world changes when there’s music in it.”

6. “The world changes when there’s music in it.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

7. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off – what more can I say?”

8. “This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off – what more can I say?”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

9. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “If you’re alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.”

10. “If you’re alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.”

11. “But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “It’s easier to interest a conservative audience in pushing the musical boundaries than to involve a young audience used to very noisy, assertive music in something like Schubert or Bach because the further back you go, the less bells and whistles there are.”

12. “It’s easier to interest a conservative audience in pushing the musical boundaries than to involve a young audience used to very noisy, assertive music in something like Schubert or Bach because the further back you go, the less bells and whistles there are.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.”

13. “Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.”

14. “But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “The way you survive in the performing arts is by having a sense of your audience, and doing things which entertain and satisfy the audience, but in a more important way, cause the audience to question many things.”

15. “The way you survive in the performing arts is by having a sense of your audience, and doing things which entertain and satisfy the audience, but in a more important way, cause the audience to question many things.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

16. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.”

17. “Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that’s something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.”

18. “And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that’s something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

19. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.”

20. “The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.”

21. “When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you’d go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you’d learn to sing a lot of songs.”

22. “In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you’d go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you’d learn to sing a lot of songs.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where “now” actually is.”

23. “One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where “now” actually is.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “Being an American musician means being adventurous.”

24. “Being an American musician means being adventurous.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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 these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.”

25. “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 these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

26. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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.”

27. “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

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn’t walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.”

28. “When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn’t walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas Quote: “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 living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me.”

29. “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 living composers and gradually that was part of the process of getting the audience really to trust me.”

— Michael Tilson Thomas

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