Art & Creativity Quote by Michael Tilson Thomas

There’s a quiet flex tucked into Michael Tilson Thomas’s modest framing: “But still as compared to many, many orchestras…” The sentence opens like a disclaimer, the kind artists use to avoid sounding sanctimonious, then pivots into a pointed benchmark. He’s not just praising his own programming; he’s indicting a broader orchestral culture that treats contemporary music as a charitable add-on rather than a core responsibility.

The repetition of “many, many” does double duty. It softens the critique (he’s not naming names) while widening the target (this is systemic). Tilson Thomas is speaking from inside the machine, and he knows the politics: donors want the classics, audiences buy tickets for the familiar, boards fear risk. So he chooses comparative language over polemic. The subtext is clear: most orchestras behave like museums, and he’s arguing for an orchestra as a living institution.

“New music and living composers” is also carefully paired. Newness alone can sound like novelty; living composers insists on the human stakes. It’s a reminder that the canon didn’t arrive sealed and finished - it was once present tense, with reputations, rivalries, and real careers on the line. Coming from a conductor long associated with adventurous programming (and with an American orchestral ecosystem often accused of conservatism), the line reads like both defense and challenge: we’re doing more than you think, and you should be doing it too.