I am grateful to Lisa Hirsch, who knew MTT well, for making a portal post with multiple obituaries and links.
I had the opportunity to sing in the children's scene at the end of an unstaged performance of Wozzeck in 1969 or 1970 at Tanglewood, and Michael Tilson Thomas was our conductor. He stood in front of us, and we felt safe. It is an odd thing to say when referring to that particular opera, but that is how I remember the experience. Before we were on stage everything was bloody and murderous. On stage we had this animated young man making sure we were singing together.
I got to sing with him again a few years later, when I was in the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. My mother was in the chorus, and somehow I was able sing in it too. I found the program for the first concert that I sang with the chorus, and Michael Tilson Thomas, who I already knew, was the conductor. I had no idea how unusual this program was for the Boston Symphony Orchestra to play.
This has bothered me for much of my life.
1 comment:
That's a wonderful program!
I would not say that I knew MTT well. I never interviewed him. The only time I can remember speaking with him was when he visited Google with Teddy Abrams (not yet the music director of the Louisville Orchestra!) and Alexander Barantschik, concertmaster of SFS. During the Q&A, I asked him about Robin Holloway's Fourth Concerto for Orchestra, an SFS commission. They'd asked for a work of 45 minutes, got a lot more than that, and when it premiered, they didn't play the whole thing. Did they have a plan to do the whole thing in the future? They had plans for some other work of his, was the answer.
Post a Comment