He's not good enough for New York (but we'll tell you about him, anyway)
mainMichael Tilson Thomas gets a rare draught of oxygen in the New York Times today, in a blog by its chief critic, Anthony Tommasini, which celebrates his ‘bi-coastality’.
MTT has two orchestras, one in San Francisco, the other in Miami. Nothing new there, but the Times has not thought to feature it before.
Despite many virtues and a strong international career, MTT was mysteriously not supported either by the Times or by many players to head the New York Philharmonic during its various regime changes. The Times, led by Tommasini, has led vociferous recent campaigns against Lorin Maazel and, more dubiously, on behalf of Alan Gilbert.
So what’s wrong with MTT? Nothing, says Tommo. We love him.
He’s just not for New York
See also: Philharmonic proposes civil partnership to NY Times: http://bit.ly/ePV7hO
I attended many of his concerts with the Philharmonia at the RFH many years ago. It was a subscription series (supported by BAT, if I recall correctly) and a large proportion of them were either MTT or Simon Rattle. Some people will hate this but I always preferred MTT.
The question is would MTT really have been interested in NY? The American music scene has been trending away for some time now from its Atlantic-facing orientation, in large part because of what has been going on for some time now in San Francisco, and now especially with the arrival of Dudamel in LA. What really would be the upside for MTT to have gone to NY?