Michael Tilson Thomas is the Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and cofounder and artistic director laureate of the New World Symphony. He is a 12-time Grammy Award winner and has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, he studied conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and as a young musician worked with artists including Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. In his mid-20s, he became assistant conductor—and later principal guest conductor—of the Boston Symphony. He subsequently served as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and principal conductor of the London Symphony.

In 1987 he cofounded the New World Symphony, a postgraduate orchestral academy in Miami Beach dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music. He has worked with more than 1,200 NWS fellows, many of whom have gone on to major musical careers.

MTT became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, ushering in a period of significant growht and heightened international recognition for the orchestra. He led the Symphony in championing contemporary and American composers alongside classical masters, and as Music Director Laureate, he has returned to conduct the orchestra each season. 

His discography includes more than 120 recordings, and his television work includes series for the BBC and PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, and numerous televised performances. “Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is” aired on PBS’s American Masters series in fall 2020.

Throughout his career, he has been an active composer, with major works including From the Diary of Anne Frank, premiered with narrator Audrey Hepburn, and Meditations on Rilke. Both appear on SFS Media’s Grammy Award-winning recording of his music. In 2023, Yuja Wang released a recording on Deutsche Grammophon which included his You Come Here Often?
He is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, a member of the American Academies of Arts and Sciences and Arts and Letters, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and a 2019 Kennedy Center honoree.

Three major recording projects were released in 2024 in celebration of his 80th birthday: Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas on Pentatone; The Complete Columbia, CBS, and RCA Recordings on Sony Classical; and Complete Deutsche Grammophon & Argo Recordings on DG Eloquence. 

Ryan McKinny’s 2017-18 season highlights include his debut at San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West, his first performances as Mandryka in a new production of R. Strauss’s Arabella at the Wiesbaden State Theater, a return engagement with Santa Fe Opera as J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’s Dr. Atomic, and his role debut in the title role of Eugene Onegin at Hawaii Opera Theater. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut at these performances.

Recent performances include his Bayreuth Festival debut as Amfortas in Parsifal (a role he also sang for his debut at Teatro Colòn in Buenos Aires), a return to the Metropolitan Opera as Biterolf in Tannhäuser, Donner in Das Rheingold with the Boston Symphony, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and his debut at the Washington National Opera as Donner and Gunther in Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Prize at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition and the Kirsten Flagstad/George London Award from the George London Foundation,  he was also finalist in the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Mr. McKinny was a grand finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and is featured in the film The Audition, released by Decca on DVD.

(September 2017)