Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

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.

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

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.

Conductors are performers.

But you know in the contemporary art world, you pose a very interesting conundrum. All sorts of people collect very contemporary art, yet when it comes to the music which is analogous to that sort of art, they are not interested, or perhaps even hostile.

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.