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In the heady days of the 1970s the London Symphony Orchestra, its members attired in casual shirts and sweaters, was pulling in huge audiences for classical music in the BBC television series André Previn’s Music Night.

The more sober approach of Previn’s immediate successor, Claudio Abbado, immersed in the European tradition, required some adjustments by audiences and players alike, but when Michael Tilson Thomas, who has died aged 81, took over in 1988, the flamboyance and high-octane dynamism returned.

On the podium he cut a glamorous, balletic figure not unlike that of Leonard Bernstein, of whom he was a protege. With the LSO he also burnished a reputation for innovation and breadth of repertory gained over the course of various appointments with American orchestras, most notably the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra (music director, 1971–79), the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (principal guest conductor, 1981-85), and the New World Symphony – a postgraduate orchestral academy in Miami Beach dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music – which he co-founded in 1987, becoming its artistic director.

With the LSO he also made a number of significant recordings, ranging from Beethoven choral works to Bernstein’s On the Town.

An extrovert stage presence, he established a rapport with audiences, frequently addressing them from the podium. He was also a lively presence in the television studio, making a series with the LSO for the BBC, broadcasting the New York Young People’s Concerts (1971-77), and appearing regularly on PBS between 1972 and 2008, including eight episodes of WNET’s Great Performances series.

With orchestral colleagues, too, he established a close camaraderie, making a point of knowing players’ names and seeking out and welcoming new members.

It was with Bernstein that he co-founded the Pacific music festival in Sapporo, Japan, in 1990 and five years later he became music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, remaining at the helm until 2020. There too his programming was radical, presenting neglected American composers such as Charles Ives, Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell, as well as Mahler, Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov.

As a declaration of intent, every subscription programme in his first season was to include an American work. Other adventurous US repertory was offered at his summer festivals, where invited musicians included members of the Californian rock band Grateful Dead. Other highlights included a Stravinsky festival (1999) and a John Cage celebration (2013).

As conductor laureate of the LSO he celebrated his 70th birthday with a concert at Buckingham Palace in front of Queen Elizabeth. He also continued to work with the New World Symphony as its artistic director laureate and collaborated with Frank Gehry on the New World Center, a state-of-the-art facility for education and performance, opened in 2011.

In 2021 he was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer, and scaled back public performances. At one late appearance with the LSO and the mezzo-soprano Alice Coote in Mahler’s Third Symphony at the Barbican in May 2024, he suffered a period of confusion, closing his score partway through, under the impression the performance was a rehearsal. With help from Coote and several players, he recovered to conduct the final movement, to a vociferous ovation.

Born in Los Angeles, Michael was the son of Roberta (nee Meritzer), head of research for Columbia Pictures, and Ted Thomas, a producer at the Mercury Theater Company in New York, who moved to Los Angeles to work in film.

His paternal grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, were pioneers of Yiddish theatre in the US. Michael’s early studies of piano, harpsichord, composition and conducting came at the University of Southern California and its prep school, and in 1963 he became music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, conducting premieres of works by Boulez, Copland, Stockhausen and Stravinsky.

Taking part in the masterclasses established in Bayreuth by Richard Wagner’s granddaughter Friedelind, he caught her attention as a budding world-class talent and in 1966 was invited to step in at the last minute as a repetiteur on Pierre’s Boulez’s Parsifal. Friedelind also engaged him to give a piano recital at Wagner’s house, Wahnfried, which he devoted to modern music, including Ives and Copland. In 1968 he won the Koussevitzsky prize, the following year becoming assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under William Steinberg, and associate conductor in 1970.

In addition to his activity as a conductor, Tilson Thomas was a fluent composer. From the Diary of Anne Frank, for narrator and orchestra, was commissioned by Unicef and premiered in 1990 with Audrey Hepburn as narrator.

The premiere of Shówa/Shoáh (1995) commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. His vocal music included settings of poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, recorded by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming respectively.

Notable among his discography of more than 140 recordings was The Mahler Project, a collection of the composer’s complete symphonies and works for voice and orchestra, performed by the San Francisco Symphony. He also recorded much American music, as well as repertory including Beethoven, Debussy and Stravinsky, additionally collaborating with popular artists such as Audra McDonald, Sarah Vaughan and Metallica.

In 2014 he married Joshua Robison, already his partner for 38 years; Robison died in February this year.

• Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, composer and pianist, born 21 December 1944; died 22 April 2026