When Michael Tilson Thomas took the stage at the San Francisco Symphony for the final time Saturday night — for a concert even some of his closest friends didn’t know if he’d be healthy enough to perform — it was to a sold-out crowd, and an audience brimming with tears.
Tilson Thomas, the musical director of the San Francisco Symphony for nearly three decades, announced in February that he would be stepping back from public performances after a recurrence of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The performance Saturday, billed as a celebration of his 80th birthday, was also an emotional tribute to a man whose remarkable life, by his own admission, is reaching its final coda.
Jack Calhoun, president of the board of the San Francisco Opera and one of Tilson Thomas’ neighbors, said friends had been reaching out for weeks trying to get tickets to the concert, which had been sold out for months.
“The concert was great, with a lot of music none of us have ever heard before,” Calhoun said after the performance. “But I think it pales in comparison to the house being 100% full … This whole community loves that man.”
Indeed, the room was filled not only with fans, but with some of the most notable names in San Francisco: Paul Pelosi, Giants owner Larry Baer and his wife Pamela Baer, philanthropist John Goldman, chef Alice Waters, and Joachim Bechtle, the husband of the late symphony board chair Nancy Bechtle. Maria Manetti Shrem, a major underwriter of the event, and Denise Hale, a San Francisco society figure and personal friend of Thomas’s, nabbed seats near the front row; Mayor Daniel Lurie and wife Becca Prowda sat upstairs in Tilson Thomas’s personal box. Also in attendance were Jerry Brown and his wife Anne Gust, and Tilson Thomas’ publicist of 50-plus years Connie Shuman.
Before the music began, attendees were treated to a tribute video chronicling some of Tilson Thomas’ distinguished past: Born to a family of artists and musicians, he made his national debut conducting the Boston Symphony at just 24, before moving on to stints at the Buffalo Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and finally, in 1995, the San Francisco Symphony. Along the way, he won 12 Grammys and founded the New World Symphony, an orchestral academy in Miami Beach for gifted young musicians.
But the real emotion started when the music did: First, with a rendition of Benjamin Britten’s “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell,” arranged and conducted for the final time by Tilson Thomas himself, then with a series of musical tributes from conductors and vocalists who had worked with the maestro over the past forty years.
Famed mezzo-sopranos Federica von Stade and Sasha Cooke, Broadway star Jessica Vosk, and beloved local vocalist Ben Jones sang original Tilson compositions, performed on stage for the first time that night. Von Stade, introducing Claude DeBussy’s La flûte de Pan, said tearfully: “[This song] is about a magic creature, and is there any more magic a creature than this guy over here?”
Through it all, Tilson Thomas sat onstage beside husband Joshua Mark Robison, singing and waving his hand in time to the music and even hamming it up with Vosk, who lightened the evening with a playful rendition of “Take Back Your Mink” from Guys and Dolls.
In the upstairs lounge at intermission, longtime symphony patrons were visibly emotional as they paused for cocktails and, in some cases, a tissue. Prominent philanthropist Mark Buell, who attended with his daughter, said he’d joked before the performance that he “should have brought a hankie.”
“This is very bittersweet,” he said, adding, “The music is what keeps Michael going.”
Jennifer Brown, whose husband, Bob Zeigler, met Tilson Thomas nearly 50 years ago while singing in the symphony chorus, leaned against a wall, looking almost faint. Later, she explained that part of the emotion came from hearing Tilson Thomas’ original compositions brought to life on stage for the first time — a surprise even the conductor did not know was coming.
“It’s very moving to hear Michael’s music performed for him by people who love him,” she said. “We’ve been listening to him play those songs on his piano in his living room for decades, and now he gets to be the recipient of all of that.”
The heightened emotions also may have stemmed from the fact that few in the audience knew going into the show if Tilson Thomas would make it to the stage. The conductor has kept up an impressive pace of performances since being diagnosed in 2021, opening the New York Philharmonic’s season in September and leading the London Symphony Orchestra in October. But the effects of the cancer’s recurrence were clear on Saturday, as the 80-year-old moved slowly across the stage, often assisted by Robison, and friends said they did not know until hours before the show if he would be able to perform.
That tension remained until the final act of the program, which Tilson Thomas was scheduled to conduct. After the penultimate performance of the night, the stage remained empty for several minutes, and guests began tittering anxiously waiting for Tilson Thomas to appear. His eventual arrival back on the stage was heralded by a standing ovation — one of many given to him that night — and the relief of the crowd, as he settled into a rousing final performance of the four-part, high-energy Roman Festivals by Ottorino Respighi. (“That was essential MTT,” said his longtime assistant, Linda Indian. “If this is his last concert in San Francisco, and he ends it with Respighi — Who else do you know who does that?”)
The show concluded with a full-cast rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time” — Tilson Thomas and Robison clasped hands at a line about the “final inning” — and a giant balloon drop, in Tilson Thomas’ favorite blue. Afterward, VIPs and symphony veterans flooded into the Wattis Room for a private reception to share memories over champagne and blue-frosted mini cupcakes.
Manetti Shrem, the philanthropist and donor to the night’s festivities, recalled seeing an announcement for Tilson Thomas’ final performance in the San Francisco Chronicle months before and immediately reaching out to the symphony about making a contribution. “I wanted to celebrate him, and to thank him,” she said. “I am so happy I made that decision.”
“The concert was magnificent,” she added. “the fact that he conducted Respighi, four movements standing up? That was outstanding. That was giving us an incredible gift.”
Tilson Thomas made a brief appearance, sitting on a raised podium in the back where guests flocked to say their final goodbyes, before being quietly escorted out a back exit. In the middle of the still-crowded, pink-paneled party room, Indian and fellow former symphony employee Deanna Harned reminisced about their years working for the legendary musician.
“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.”
As a pianist played quietly in the background and guests continued swapping memories of Tilson Thomas until the early hours of the next morning, it was hard not to see the inspiration for a line in one of his original compositions, performed for the first time earlier that night: “For the truth is, life is good. So many memories. Amen.”