Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas, Tanglewood, August 2022 I was profoundly saddened to learn about the death, yesterday, of Michael Tilson Thomas. Just because something is inevitable and imminent doesn’t make it less of a shock when it comes. I sang under Maestro MTT’s baton twice in my career, both times at Tanglewood: once in the summer of 2010 for performances of the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms and the Mozart Requiem, and once recently, in 2022, for the season-ending Beethoven 9 performance (preceded by a nervy chorus-only performance of Charles Ives’ “Psalm 90” under the baton of James Burton). I feel privileged to have had these experiences, particularly the 2022 one, coming only a short time after his diagnosis of terminal cancer. To see him continuing not only to battle on but to make music the way it should be performed—that is to say, vitally, humorously, and above all humanely—was tremendously moving. Also: no one prepared me for how garrulous, funny, and generally chatty he was as…