The famed conductor and beloved San Francisco icon Michael Tilson Thomas took his final bow Wednesday, succumbing to a rare form of brain cancer in his home, The New York Times reported (opens in new tab).

Thomas, 81, served as music director for the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years, elevating it to one of the most highly respected symphonies in the U.S. and leaving an indelible mark on the city’s musicians and classical music fans. 

Friends and followers had been anticipating his death since he was diagnosed in 2021 with glioblastoma. Watching his decline, said longtime friend Orville Schell, “was like some great library being burned — all this music within him would be gone.”

But his death was also a moment for celebration of a man who pushed the city and its arts and culture to new heights and paved the way for a generation of young music lovers.

“Michael and [husband Joshua Mark Robison] together changed the way we see classical music in San Francisco, as they wove themselves and their passions into the fabric of our city,” said former SF Symphony President Sakurako Fisher. “They are the model for our future.”

“He reimagined what this orchestra — and classical music in a city like ours — could be,” symphony CEO Matthew Spivey added. “He was a brilliant conductor, a generous teacher, and a deeply original human being. … San Francisco and the musical world are better for his life.”

Thomas — or MTT, as he was known to fans — joined the symphony in 1995, after a career that most would already consider legendary: starting as a conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra at just 24 and advancing to music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, then to principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and finally to principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Among American conductors, none is more talented or adventurous; among the world’s best, he ranks in the top dozen,” Time (opens in new tab) wrote of the maestro in 1990.

By the time he arrived in SF, he was already a celebrity to classical music fans. Longtime friend Eleanor Bertino remembers banners bearing his face hanging around the city to announce his arrival. Jon Finck, a San Francisco arts publicist, remembers a sold-out first concert at which audience members jumped to their feet, “screaming, yelling, cheering like he was the messiah.”

The child of a Broadway stage manager and grandson of two stars of the New York Yiddish Theater, Thomas had a theatrical stage presence that swept audiences along and an ability to interpret music that, according to Finck, was “truly out of the Bernstein mode.” His passionate conducting drew in audiences of all ages, and his ambitious programming — with a special focus on contemporary American composers — elevated the San Francisco Symphony to a world-class orchestra, with glowing reviews in NPR, The New York Times, and even Rolling Stone.

Fisher, the former symphony president, said the conductor first captured her heart at his monthlong American Mavericks festival celebrating U.S. composers.

“He exploded my brain with the music he presented, sharing his passion and deep pleasure in rewiring my concept of what great music could be,” she said in a statement. “His joy in bringing music and people together, anywhere and at any time, influenced and infused multiple generations of listeners and practitioners.”

Thomas won a dozen Grammys, a Peabody Award, and a National Medal of Arts and made more than 120 recordings of music by composers from Beethoven to Elvis Costello. He also found time to found an orchestral academy for young musicians called the New World Symphony and to help create the (opens in new tab)YouTube Symphony Orchestra — the first-ever online collaborative orchestra, showcasing top-tier musicians from 30 countries. 

The conductor also helped launch SFS Media, the first record label owned by a major U.S. orchestra, and created and hosted a five-part PBS series in partnership with the SF Symphony.

“MTT didn’t just lead the symphony — he became part of the cultural fabric of San Francisco itself, expanding what it meant to be an orchestra in a city like ours,” said Board Chair Priscilla Geeslin. “His impact reached far beyond the concert hall, touching the life of the city in ways both visible and deeply personal.”

Despite his star power, his friends who spoke with The Standard recalled quieter moments: parties where Thomas would take to the piano and perform “little ditties” he’d invented, weekends spent perusing the Ferry Plaza farmers market, a private penchant for off-color jokes. 

Friends remembered him as a generous host and an avid cook. San Francisco philanthropist Denise Hale recalled that before a hip surgery years ago, when she was in debilitating pain, Thomas regularly came over to cook for her. “We would go to my library and have a drink, and then he would carry me to the dining room table,” she said. “He was the most thoughtful, wonderful friend.”

Friends also noted the joy Thomas found in picking out the ideal present or in recommending the perfect piece of music. Leah Garchik, a former columnist for the SF Chronicle, recalled going to see Thomas backstage after one of his shows, when fans were piled up to shake his hand and congratulate him. When she reached the front of the line, he stopped and went to retrieve something from his personal effects — a book he’d bought her for her birthday.

“He was so much fun, and he was a loving and loyal person,” Bertino said. “He was brilliant and funny and all that, but he was very sweet — he really cared about people.”

Just how much people cared about Thomas, too, was evident in his final concert, in April 2025. Assisted onstage by his husband, Thomas performed an impressively high-energy program, including Ottorino Respighi’s four-part “Roman Festivals,” and sang and nodded along to tributes performed by mezzo-soprano Federica von Stade and Broadway star Jessica Vosk. At the end, hundreds of balloons rained down from the ceiling in Thomas’ signature blue, as a tear-stained crowd gave the conductor his final standing ovation.

At an after-party at the concert hall, friends and colleagues gathered to say their goodbyes. Over blue-frosted cupcakes, associates including former symphony employee Deanna Harned reminisced on what it was like to work for the pioneering conductor.

“We all have the same story, which is that Michael helped us see what music can do for the world,” Harned said. “And we’re lucky to be a part of it.”

After being the one to assist Thomas onto the stage at that final performance, it was Robison — MTT’s partner of more than 50 years — who died first, succumbing in February to complications from a fall, at age 79. 

Schell, who visited regularly with Thomas in the months preceding his death, said it was almost “a providence” that he should decline so quickly after his husband’s death. The relationship “went beyond just two people,” Schell said: “It was almost like they shared the same vascular system, or some common internal organ, because each was reliant on the other for different things.

“They formed one whole, and neither would have survived well without the other,” he added.

Thomas spent his last few months surrounded by members of Robison’s family and by friends including former state Sen. Mark Leno, who officiated at the Thomas-Robison wedding and moved into the house to take care of Thomas in his final days. Schell said Thomas spent his time listening to music, watching movies, and playing piano, until he was unable to do even that. 

Still, in the years following his diagnosis, Thomas seemed to be making the most of things. In 2022, he told The New York Times he had been taking bucket-list trips with family and friends, organizing 60 years’ worth of personal journals, and — what else? — contemplating the music he wanted played at his memorial service.

“Even in a situation where the time is short, whether in rehearsal or in life, you can accept and forgive yourself,” he said. “You can say, ‘I had this much time, and this is what I could accomplish.’ And that’s fine. I am at peace with it.”