Former SF Symphony musical director and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who formally retired in 2020, announced early Monday that a brain tumor he was first treated for several years ago has returned, and he plans to wind down his public appearances for good.
MTT, as he's been known for decades in the local and international music world, has had previously announced plans to celebrate his 80th birthday at Davies Symphony Hall in April, and he now says this will be his final concert as a conductor.
The New York Times was among the first to report on the news, which Thomas delivered in an email to friends and colleagues, sent out early this morning. He said that while further treatment options are available, he did not say what options he will be pursuing, and added, "the odds are uncertain."
"Now is the time to wind down my public appearances," Thomas wrote, noting the April 26 concert as well as some late March and early April concerts with Miami's New World Symphony, which he co-founded before moving to San Francisco.
"At that point we all get to say the old show business expression, 'It’s a wrap,'" Thomas writes.
As the Times notes, Thomas has already withdrawn from a scheduled appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra in early March.
Thomas first announced his diagnosis in 2021, and he does not seem to have known about it when he decided to retire back in 2017. (He also took a medical leave in mid-2019 to undergo heart surgery.) He was diagnosed with the particularly aggressive form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma, and as the Times notes, MTT has "defied expectations," continuing to travel and conduct while he was undergoing treatment. He has reportedly had two tumor removal surgeries, in 2021 and 2023. In his statement he referred to having to "manage complications from the treatments that have held the tumor at bay."
A concert of Mahler in January 2024 was assumed to be Thomas's swan song, as the Chronicle notes. So the April birthday concert will be something of a bonus to fans.
The evening will include Thomas conducting Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Ottorino Respighi’s Roman Festivals. He will also be joined by singers Frederica von Stade, Sasha Cooke, Jessica Vosk, and Ben Jones who will sing works by Thomas and other composers.
As Thomas writes, "A coda can vary greatly in length. My life’s coda is generous and rich. Life is precious."
Thomas first joined the SF Symphony in 1995 as musical director, but he had made his conducting debut, conducting Mahler's Ninth, there in 1974 at age 29. As the Chronicle noted, during an open rehearsal for that January 2024 concert, "Thomas asked [the audience] whether anyone had been on hand to witness that [1974] performance; one stalwart audience member raised her hand."
His retirement year was of course marred by the pandemic, and a large retirement sendoff concert planned in June 2020 ended up being done online and on the radio.
Former state Senator Mark Leno, a longtime friend of Thomas and his husband Joshua Robison, tells the Chronicle, "We are all the fortunate beneficiaries of Michael’s tireless devotion to sharing the magic and wonder of his music making."
Previously: Michael Tilson Thomas to Conduct the SF Symphony Again, But For One Night Only for His 80th Birthday Party
Top image: Michael Tilson Thomas leading the Philadelphia Orchestra in Berlioz's "Symphony Fantastique" at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, December 6, 2013.(Photo by Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images)
