Born December 21: Michael Tilson Thomas

Earlier this year Michael Tilson Thomas won his eleventh Grammy for conducting the San Francisco Symphony performing John Adams' Harmonielehre & Short Ride in a Fast Machine. MTT came to SF after a string of successes, beginning with conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at twenty-four, ten days after being named assistant conductor in 1969, followed by the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Twenty-six years ago he founded the New World Symphony, the premier orchestral academy, of which he is still artistic director and was instrumental(!) in getting their New World Center open in 2011 in a Miami Beach complex designed by his former babysitter Frank Gehry. Among his own acclaimed compositions are Poems of Emily Dickinson sung by Renee Fleming, Songs to Poems of Walt Whitman sung by Thomas Hampson, and From the Diary of Anne Frank narrated by Audrey Hepburn. He and Joshua Robison, partners of more than thirty years, share an Edwardian house in San Francisco and a 1925 pink stucco palace in Miami. Today he's 69.