Michael Tilson Thomas is 74 years old. In conductor years, that's young.
He wears his elder-statesman mantle lightly, even with a kind of incredulity. He's "MTT," music director of the San Francisco Symphony, co-founder of the New World Symphony in Florida, sometime-leader of dozens of major orchestras around the world, expert communicator, breaker-down of musical genres and still, at bottom, the youngest-ever conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, of whom Leonard Bernstein once said, "He reminds me of me at that age." Thomas has been famous for so long, and boyish for so long, that he hasn't had to struggle to attain the one or ever entirely abandon the other.
It has been amazing to attend the San Francisco Symphony this season. Absolutely phenomenal works and inspiring energy, even all the way up in my cheap seats.