From Mahler to Metallica to a Kennedy Center honor: Michael Tilson Thomas

He’s equal parts Mahler and Metallica. He’s bicoastal — Miami Beach and San Francisco. His parents told him that, as a tiny tyke, he could never walk past a piano without playing something.

And now Michael Tilson Thomas, co-founder of Miami’s New World Symphony, music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and a man who parlayed his early bond with music to enrich countless others through his conducting and teaching, is a Kennedy Center Award honoree.

Tilson Thomas, 74, was awarded one of the nation’s highest honors at a Washington gala on Dec. 8, alongside pop singer Linda Ronstadt, actress Sally Field, the children’s TV program “Sesame Street” and R&B group Earth, Wind & Fire.

The two-hour ceremony will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS, and New World is hosting a free simulcast of the program with an outdoor Wallcast at SoundScape Park in Miami Beach.

“I am so honored to have received this award, which is of national significance, particularly because so much of it involves the wonderful work I have been able to do in Miami,” Tilson Thomas told the Miami Herald.

“The New World Symphony has been such a beautiful dream and I am looking forward, right here in Miami Beach, to continue that dream into the future,” he said.

Tilson Thomas — better known as MTT — co-founded New World Symphony with Lin and Ted Arison in 1988. It is designed as a national youth training orchestra for conservatory graduates aiming for professional careers with leading symphonies worldwide. Over the years, the symphony has nurtured 1,100 alumni through residencies involving masterclasses, performance and tutelage by Tilson Thomas.

At the Washington D.C. gala on Dec. 8, New World Symphony alum performed a rendition of Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown,” excerpts from Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” and accompanied Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald for a rousing rendition of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s “Somewhere” from “West Side Story.”

Thanks to Tilson Thomas’ role with the San Francisco Symphony, they were joined by Metallica drummer, Lars Ulrich — nattily attired in a suit and tie and baseball cap — at that tribute.

Bridging musical worlds

If that pairing seems odd, know this: Metallica first teamed with the San Francisco Symphony in 1999 for the live album, “S&M,” four years after Tilson Thomas became the symphony’s music director.

Tilson Thomas is a “huge fan” of the trailblazing metal band whose albums “Ride the Lightning,” “Master of Puppets” and a self-titled 1991 set are considered classics of the genre.

“S&M” paired Metallica’s metal music with orchestral accompaniment, prefiguring a trend today that has seen others like The London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra adding orchestral tracks onto pre-existing vocal tracks on pop recordings. The result: new albums for Rod Stewart, the Carpenters, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and others.

In September, Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony, under Tilson Thomas’s lead as conductor, staged a reunion concert, S&M2, before 18,000 fans at San Francisco’s Chase Center.

Tilson Thomas held the metal audience enthralled, Rolling Stone reported — not what one might expect from an individual who preceded the joint performance by explaining the concept of “futurism” and introducing a piece by Russian composer Alexander Mosolov to the Metallica crowd. Then Tilson Thomas and the musicians tore into modern classics like “Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth).”

Ulrich was still buzzing over the hip septuagenarian two months later at the Kennedy Center gala.

“It was absolutely incredible to be part of the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. this past weekend, and being given the privilege of celebrating Michael Tilson Thomas’ creative achievements….including giving a shout out to the S&M2 project he was such an integral part of it.,” Ulrich, 55, posted on Instagram.

Somehow you can’t quite imagine a classical music figurehead like the late Leonard Bernstein ever going on the road with sweat-drenched R&B icon James Brown the way MTT did. Tilson Thomas loved Brown, much in the way he loves Mahler.

The Metallica opportunities gave MTT the ability to cross over to a younger audience, making the maestro a bit of a rock star himself. And that brought some not-unexpected sniping.

“There were people inside of classical music who chastise me and say, ‘Why are you going off to be on the road with James Brown when you could be practicing and learning another symphony? Coloring outside the lines is one of my missions in life, and to give people the courage to do that,” Tilson Thomas told CBS.

But that’s Tilson Thomas’ special mojo: his ability to forge bonds, said Howard Herring, president and CEO of the New World Symphony.

“Over the course of a long and storied career, MTT has reimagined the centuries-old art form of classical music, giving it relevance and power in contemporary society,” Herring said. “He has a unique understanding of how classical music engages and lifts a community. These accomplishments are evident in the mission and vision of the New World Symphony, and the impact that New World Center and Wallcast concerts have had on Miami. When MTT co-founded New World Symphony 32 years ago with the late Ted Arison and wife Lin, no one could have imagined the local and global impact it would have.”

Take those Wallcasts, for example.

Some nine years after their implementation, thousands of locals and tourists regularly turn out in SoundScape Park for free concerts by New World Symphony musicians and fellows that are simulcast on the classical music venue’s outdoor wall.

At times, a Hollywood studio movie like “Avatar” or “Xanadu” is the attraction — oft-prefaced and followed with footage promoting the work the young musicians perform inside.

There have also been lounge-like Pulse concerts mixing symphony and DJs, $2.50 mini concerts, explanatory videos posted on MTT’s website, and even on the glass walls of the symphony building. These events are all a part of MTT’s strategy for attracting new audiences that appeal to a broader age range and populace than classical music’s, older and whiter norm.

It appears to be working. According to a 2014 study commissioned by New World Symphony, the Wallcasts concerts have attracted a diverse and intergenerational audience where 30% reported that they were 45 years old or younger and 34% identified as a person of color.

Among MTT’s fans is Arison granddaughter Sarah, who now spearheads family cultural and philanthropic efforts at Miami’s YoungArts, another Arison-created foundation that supports high-school aged artists.

“It’s just incredible!” Sarah Arison said in an email to the Miami Herald. “Thirty-two years ago my grandparents had the idea to create a symphony for young people in Miami. Eight years ago we opened a spectacular Frank Gehry concert hall on South Beach. And now our co-founder and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas received the Kennedy Center Honors while some of our over-1,000 alums blew everyone away with their performance in front of a set that was a replica of the Miami sky and the New World Center! It was a magical evening and such a huge moment. I only wish my grandfather could’ve be with us to see it.”

Tilson Thomas’ music origins

For Tilson Thomas, the love of music came early.

He was as born in Los Angeles, the son of a Broadway stage manager father and a middle school history teacher mother. His grandparents were Manhattan Yiddish theater stars Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky.

He had to look up, the way you might look toward the top of a skyscraper to marvel at its magnificence, to see and stretch toward the keys of the family piano, he said in a profile this week on “CBS This Morning.”

“My first memories of playing the piano, playing like this,” he demonstrated on the program. “My parents told me I couldn’t walk by the piano without playing something on it.”

MTT’s first big break was at 24 when he substituted for an ailing Boston Symphony conductor William Steinberg mid-concert, CBS reported. Critics opined the youngest-ever conductor of the Boston Symphony would be the next Leonard Bernstein.

Bernstein wasn’t put off by the challenge. “He reminds me of me at that age, “ Bernstein had said, according to The Washington Post.

Bernstein quickly became Tilson Thomas’ mentor and until his death at 72 in 1990, a friend. (Bernstein received the Kennedy Center honor in 1980.)

MTT has worked in South Florida, San Francisco, Boston, New York with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles with the Philharmonic, and he was once a principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

As he approaches 75 on Dec. 21, MTT has announced he’s stepping down from his directing role with the San Francisco Symphony after the 2019-20 season.

San Francisco Symphony CEO Mark Hanson said of Tilson Thomas: “MTT is a visionary artist who lives life with unbridled enthusiasm for sharing the power of music with those around him. The impact he has had on the cultural landscape of San Francisco and this country is nothing short of extraordinary, and we extend our hearty congratulations on this important occasion.”

But right now, the man who has “colored outside the lines” all over the world, will see perhaps his greatest honor splashed on a 7,000-square-foot wall thanks to the New World Symphony’s Wallcast broadcast Sunday.

The $160-million building was designed by famed architect Frank Gehry — another friend who baby sat a “precocious 8-year-old piano prodigy” Tilson Thomas 66 year ago in L.A., as the Miami Herald once described the little MTT.

“It’s interesting doing this bicoastal thing between San Francisco and Miami,” Tilson Thomas told the Herald in a 2014 feature story. “They both have in common beautiful sky and beautiful air and beautiful water. I think being outdoors in both places has an effect on everything else. It makes you feel connected to the big real world.”

If you go

What: New World Symphony and CBS4’s Live Wallcast of the 42nd annual Kennedy Center Honors broadcast, honoring recipient Michael Tilson Thomas

Where: New World Center and SoundScape Park, 400 17th St, Miami Beach

When: 8 p.m.-10 p.m. Sunday (the Kennedy Honors will be broadcast at that time on television on CBS

Cost: No charge for the Wallcast

Information: CBS4 Entertainment Reporter Lisa Petrillo emcees and will be joined by NWS Fellows and NWS President and CEO Howard Herring