The San Francisco Conservatory of Music today mourns the passing at 81 of Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT), composer, conductor, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founder and director of New World Symphony, SFCM Distinguished Professor of Music, and longtime champion and mentor to young musicians. MTT was predeceased by his husband Joshua Robison in February 2026.

"Michael was a singular visionary, unmatched in curiosity and creative voice, and a brilliant artist of limitless capability," said David Stull, President of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. "But his enduring devotion to nurturing the next generation may ultimately define his legacy. Even in the face of illness, he continued to create, to teach, and to build. He and Joshua found a home for that work at the Conservatory over these last few years, bringing to life projects like Grace, but our students were the true beneficiaries of their presence. Michael and Joshua exuded a powerful spirit of optimism, even as they navigated monumental personal challenges—it moved all of us. They were great friends. We will deeply miss them."

In 1995, MTT was named Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, beginning a long partnership between himself and the Conservatory. At the 2003 groundbreaking for SFCM's Ann Getty Center for Education at 50 Oak Street, he noted, "The Conservatory at Civic Center completes the circle of symphony, opera and conservatory."

Michael Tilson Thomas (Credit: Art Streiber).

Celebrating its 100th year in 2017, SFCM brought Tilson Thomas to its Centennial Convocation to address students, where he spoke to the power of music as a uniting force: "All the music we play is in the key of human." Presciently, he also addressed how musicians have to balance that humanity with the modern world: "You’re going to have to be the ones to invent a personal and caring way in which new technology, new life plans, can be used productively and sustainably."

SFCM functioned as a creative home for MTT and his creative, business, and life partner Robison in recent years. When he began his battle with brain cancer, Tilson Thomas and Robison needed a space close to home to continue their work together. Appointed Distinguished Professor of Music at SFCM in 2024, MTT worked individually with students, participated in readings with the SFCM Orchestra, and held masterclasses at the Conservatory, which culminated in the four-CD box set Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas that year. Partially recorded at SFCM and released on the Conservatory's partner label Pentatone, the album was celebrated with an October 2024 concert at SFCM coinciding with MTT's 80th birthday, which raised over $32,000 for the UCSF Brain Tumor Center. (Less than a year earlier, the corner of Grove Street and Van Ness Avenue, next to Davies Symphony Hall and across Van Ness from SFCM's Bowes Center, was renamed "MTT Way.") The Grace project at SFCM also established a digital legacy of Michael Tilson Thomas’s work, created as an ongoing resource for students and artists.

Aside from the many Conservatory faculty who worked with MTT at the SFS, SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater also had a special relationship with the maestro, who appointed Outwater Resident Conductor of the SFS in 2001, a position he held until 2006. Outwater was on the podium for MTT's farewell concert in 2025, his final public appearance. "Michael understood the power of music in the most profound way," Outwater now says. "He shared his vision and example of a musical life with generations of performers and listeners, bringing us together. It was deeply inspiring to witness how music sustained him during his final years, and in his final days. I will carry him with me always, and will remain connected to him, like so many others, through his music and memory."

Also on the podium for the farewell concert was 2005 SFCM graduate and Bay Area native Teddy Abrams, whose relationship with MTT began decades ago. After seeing Tilson Thomas conduct, Abrams wrote him a letter "about the experience, about how much I loved what I saw, the kind of music he was leading, how enthusiastic I was, how I knew I would be a conductor."

When the SFS farewell concert was announced, Abrams said of his mentor, "Michael has been a constant in my life. His profound understanding of what music truly means, his capacity to help others perceive previously unimagined possibilities, and his insight into life itself have guided me throughout my journey and have always reminded me of what a genuine artist can be in our world today."

Abrams, now Music Director of the Louisville Symphony, will be returning to SFCM for its 2026 Commencement. He continued, "Michael and Joshua have been family to me for nearly 30 years; I am grateful for every moment that I’ve spent with them."

Recognized early for his musical talent, MTT studied piano, composition, and conducting. Following his formal studies, and after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood in 1969, he was appointed Assistant Conductor and pianist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, later advancing to the position of Principal Guest Conductor, which he held until 1974. Tilson Thomas also served as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979; as a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985; and in 1987 was appointed Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, where he served until 1995 before arriving at SFS. Also in 1987, he co-founded the prestigious New World Symphony and served as its Artistic Director. MTT was named Conductor Laureate of the LSO and became Music Director Laureate of SFS in June 2020 when he concluded his 25-year directorship of the orchestra.

Michael Tilson Thomas at SFCM's centennial convocation in 2017.

Tilson Thomas considered himself as part of a teaching lineage, familial and professional, that spanned generations. In a 2025 interview with CBS News, he explained that both his parents were teachers, noting his mother "changed a lot of lives." The year prior, at his first coaching session with an SFCM chamber ensemble, Thomas spoke about many of his early peers and colleagues who had left Europe due to World War II and "who in California all found the sort of lotus land where they could just work with young people and have time to revel in the music."

He continued, "Being able to give people that quality of joy and revelry within the music, in spite of the condition of the world, is testimony that reminds us that human beings have the possibility of being human."