Some musicians seem incapable of ageing; and until quite recently a prime example was that most articulate, engaging and all-round alive of conductors Michael Tilson Thomas.
Decades passed and, with them, orchestras: the London Symphony, which he directed in the 1980s/90s; then the San Francisco Symphony, which he ran from the mid-90s through to 2020. Eras changed. But MTT, as people call him, somehow didn’t. He held onto a mercurially boyish grace and elegance – until, in 2022, news broke that he’d contracted a particularly cruel and aggressive kind of brain cancer.
Since then, the music world has watched and waited; and for MTT himself it’s been, to say the least, an anxious time. But this December brings his 80th birthday. He’s still here, still working, though to a restricted…