Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

If the audience walks out of a concert thinking, What a wonderful experience, then we have done our job.

That's one of the good things about music. You get to do it live, where you can touch the people and interact with them.

It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music.

You don't go see Primus to see what kind of new clothing I'm wearing or what my new hairdo is. You come to see Primus for the musical experience and the visual experience. I think, anyways. Maybe I'm wrong!

Music expresses what cannot be put into words I like to think, and I think the band makes a good go at it.

Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

I really do like seeing other people perform my music. It's one of the most rewarding things for me, so it's worth the extra work.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

I'm interested in good collaborations and in working with directors who bring something new and interesting out of you.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

You have to think about why you're asking an audience to come to the theater. It's not that they should come because it's good for them, because it's the vegetables that they should eat and the culture shot that they should get... It's about experience and building community and catalyzing dialogue and bringing people together.

I just want my audiences to be entertained and feel like they're part of the show. I want to show them a good time and create an experience they're going to enjoy.

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

I'm a really good team player. That's what it takes to work in the theater. That's what it takes to work in a band with musicians and writers.

I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me.

I feel like I'm a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it's a good writer, then I have a great road map.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

I learnt early on that your audience take the songs in the way they want to rather than the way you might want them too.

But some people will say you just did these programs. Well, yes, the programs are important and I'm proud of the programs, but mostly I'm proud of the way the San Francisco Symphony plays these programs.

Our live show is a definite experience, since it's an extension of my albums.

As long as I can sing halfway decent, I'd rather sing than act. There's nothing like being in good voice, feeling good, having good numbers to do and having a fine orchestra.

The songs become the show, which is how it should be.

From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.

The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me, the Orchestra and me and the public, between all of us and the city of New York, because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.

It's just that, when the orchestra look at me, I want them to see a completely involved person who reflects what we rehearsed, and whose function is to make it possible for them to do it.