Michael Tilson Thomas, Grammy-Winning Conductor, Dies at 81

Staff AuthorThu, April 23, 2026 at 8:17 PM UTC

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Michael Tilson Thomas in Washington, D.C. in December 2019.Credit: Paul Morigi/Getty -

Michael Tilson Thomas died on April 22 at age 81

The famed conductor was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in 2021

He died several months after his husband Joshua Robison, with whom he spent the last 50 years

Michael Tilson Thomas, a Grammy-winning conductor, composer and pianist who spent 25 years as the San Francisco Symphony's music director, has died. He was 81.

Thomas died on Wednesday, April 22, five years after he was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive type of brain cancer, according to a statement shared to his Instagram.

“Through his illness he continued to make music—a testament to his legacy as an artist and communicator,” the statement said. “He was preceded in death by his husband Joshua Robison, and passed away at home surrounded by loved ones and family. Joshua and Michael are survived by their sisters, nieces and nephews. 💙”

Robison, whom Thomas married in 2014 after nearly 40 years together, died in February.

Thomas was a 12-time Grammy winner, most recently in 2021, and was also a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and a Kennedy Center honoree.

The Los Angeles native first rose to fame in 1969, when at age 24, he stepped in for ailing Boston Symphony conductor William Steinberg mid-concert.

Thomas went on to become the Symphony's assistant conductor, and later held a number of notable positions around the world, including principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 1995, when he left for San Francisco. In 1987, Thomas also cofounded and became artistic director of the New World Symphony, an academy in Miami Beach that's helped launch the careers of 1,300 alumni.

“The world will remember his brilliant mind, limitless imagination and his creative and collaborative spirit,” the New World Symphony said in a statement. “At heart, MTT was a creative risk-taker, powerful communicator and independent thinker. His fearless explorations provided context that brought relevance, intimacy and urgency to our relationship with music. He has had a profound influence on all of us and on the art form we so dearly love.”

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Michael Tilson Thomas in Los Angeles in March 2024.Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty

Thomas ended his 25-year tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony in 2020, and later became its Music Director Laureate. He conducted his final performance in April 2025, according to The New York Times.

The musician was born in Los Angeles and was a third-generation creative; his grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky were pioneers of Yiddish theater, while his dad Ted Thomas was a producer at the Mercury Theater Company in New York.

Thomas studied piano and conducting and composition at the University of Southern California. But it was his experiences in middle school that helped shape the rest of his life, as he met his future husband Robison in their school orchestra in 1958.

Michael Tilson Thomas in Miami in March 2019.Credit: Manny Hernandez/Getty

Thomas, then 12, played the oboe and piano, while Robison, aged 11, played the cello, the two recalled in the 2020 PBS American Masters episode "Where Now Is."

“I was playing in the band of some of those athletic events [that Robison competed in], so I did have a secret crush on Josh,” Thomas recalled. “He didn't know that. I was admiring him from afar.”

The two reconnected and became a couple in 1976, and were married in 2014, according to the Times.

“There are two key times in an artist's life. The first is inventing yourself. The second, the harder part, is going the distance,” Thomas said while giving the commencement address at The Juilliard School in 2022. “How do you sustain the vision, make it grow, and share it? To be an artist means to have the courage for rebirth and growth. It's never ending.”

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