Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

He's a world-famous name to people who care about his music, but there are many people who have never heard of George Gershwin and those numbers increase.

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 don't think you can mix classical music and reggae. It's not possible. But some producer in, like, Norway is going to put it together.

There are always new things to experience, internalize then write about. This process is ongoing with me. It never stops. The opportunity to reach new audiences with all of the music that we have made is thrilling.

The scientist addresses an infinitesimal audience of fellow composers.

With music, you can create instant trust with an audience. You can hear three notes, and you surrender to it, whereas it takes you about ten minutes of language before people begin to trust you in a play.

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing.

The most important thing in a piece of music is to seduce people to the point where they start searching.

Yeah, you're a regular Mozart...well, except for the whole music thing.

You want something by Bach? Which one, Johann Sebastian or Jacques Offen?

The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one of the few who can easily be mentioned with Stravinsky, Picasso and Joyce. His life was the embodiment of one who moves from rags to riches, from anonymity to internationally imitated innovator. Louis Daniel Armstrong supplied revolutionary language that took on such pervasiveness that it became commonplace, like the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone.

Ritchie Blackmore was a huge early influence on me, but after that I had to find my own way ... Johann Sebastian Bach was probably the most influential guy ever on me ... Vivaldi, Beethoven and eventually Paganini ... all of a sudden I was thinking in all these other areas, instead of blues riffs.

If you give the audience what they expect, they'll be bored. There are no rules: You do what you want while respecting the boundaries. You don't poke people in the eye; you do things they haven't seen before and make it accessible, funny and clever.

The reason you have to say "Trust me" is that you haven't earned it and are forced to ask for it - BAD MOVE.

Liszt's so-called piano music is nothing but Chopin and brandy.

I'd trusted my fan base, I'd trusted the my gut, and I'd trusted the music. ...the real experts are out there in front of you every night. They're the ones buying the tickets and coming to the shows. They're the professionals in this business, and they're the only ones who can tell you which songs have the ability to move them.

I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people.

When we play Jenny Don't Be Hasty, that's cool because everyone really dances. It's between that and when we play Loving You, that's when you give it your all. Well you give it your all for all of it but that's like proper end singing with your full strength put in.

The value we create is directly related to how much valuable information we can produce, how much trust we can earn, and how often we innovate.

The young, free to act on their initiative, can lead their elders in the direction of the unknown... The children, the young, must ask the questions that we would never think to ask, but enough trust must be re-established so that the elders will be permitted to work with them on the answers.

Which one of us, anywhere in the world, doesn't yearn to be believed when the audience is watching?

Beethoven’s music always struck me. Always. He had this fire you know. I remember reading this story of him going deaf and pushing himself into self-isolation and that’s where he became himself. And to me that was, wow. Don’t let anything poison your individuality. Be away, break away and look in not outward.

I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.

all this Beethoven and rain