Michael Tilson Thomas,<\/a> a leading American conductor for a half-century who headed orchestras in Buffalo, Miami, London and San Francisco while also composing, died Wednesday. He was 81.<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas had surgery for a brain tumor in 2021<\/a> and resumed his career, then said in February 2025 the tumor had returned.<\/a> He conducted his final concert with the San Francisco Symphony in April 2025 and died at his home in San Francisco, spokesperson Connie Shuman said.<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas received 39 Grammy Award nominations, winning 12, and was among the Kennedy Center Honors recipients<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s meant to have various intriguing and alluring, questioning things that you hear on first hearing,\u201d he said of classical music during a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. \u201cBut by its very nature it\u2019s holding a lot of other secrets or a lot of other perspectives much closer to its chest, which only with repeated hearing you start realizing are there.\u201d<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 21, 1944, to a family steeped in the arts. His father, Ted, was a producer at New York\u2019s Mercury Theater Company, then worked in Los Angeles in the movie and television industry. His mother, Roberta, headed research for Columbia Pictures. His grandparents, Bessie and Boris Thomashefsky, were pioneers in American Yiddish theater.<\/p>\n He played piano at a young age and attended the University of Southern California. By the time he received a degree in 1967, he had worked with Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky and Karlheinz Stockhausen.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t fling the word genius around lightly, but I fling it around about Michael. He reminds me of me at that age, except that he knows more than I did,\u201d conductor Leonard Bernstein told The New York Times Magazine for a 1971 profile. \u201cNot only music, but things like the functions of the brain, cerebrology, physics, biochemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas was the co-music director and then music director of California\u2019s Ojai Festival in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was an assistant at Germany\u2019s Bayreuth Festival in 1966, won the Koussevitzky Prize at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1968 and became a Boston Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor in 1969.<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas made his New York debut at Lincoln Center\u2019s Philharmonic Hall on Oct. 22, 1969, as a mid-concert replacement for an ailing William Steinberg. Tilson Thomas led Robert Starer\u2019s Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, and Strauss\u2019 \u201cTill Eulenspiegel.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA tall, thin young man, he came on stage with an air of immense confidence and authority, and showed that his confidence was not misplaced,\u201d critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote in the Times. \u201cHe takes naturally to this music, as might be expected of a Tanglewood graduate and a pupil of Pierre Boulez.\u201d<\/p>\n Tilson Thomas became the BSO\u2019s principal guest conductor from 1972-1974 and was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971-79 and a principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981-85.<\/p>\n