Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor who built the New World Symphony, dies at 81

Michael Tilson Thomas, one of the most influential American conductors of the past half-century, died on 22 April 2026 at his home in San Francisco, his spokesperson told the Associated Press. He was 81. He had undergone surgery for a brain tumor in 2021, returned to the podium, and announced in February 2025 that the cancer had come back. He led his last concert with the San Francisco Symphony in April 2025.

Born in Los Angeles in 1944, Tilson Thomas grew up in a family steeped in performance: his grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky were pioneering stars and producers of the Yiddish theater on New York's Lower East Side. He became an assistant conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra while still in his twenties, then led the Buffalo Philharmonic through the 1970s, served as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1995, and was music director of the San Francisco Symphony for a quarter-century, from 1995 to 2020. Leonard Bernstein, his mentor, saw in him a younger version of himself.

His most lasting institution may be the New World Symphony in Miami, which he co-founded in 1987 with backing from Ted Arison. The orchestra serves as a bridge between conservatory and professional life for young musicians, and Tilson Thomas directed it until 2021. Generations of its fellows now play in orchestras around the world.

Tilson Thomas was also known for championing American composers, for television and online projects that brought classical music to wide audiences, and for his own compositions, including a setting of passages from the diary of Anne Frank first narrated by Audrey Hepburn. He honored his family's heritage in The Thomashefskys, a stage work built on the music of his grandparents' theater. Over his career he received 39 Grammy nominations and won a dozen, and he was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2019.