NPR Classical

NPR | By Tom Huizenga

Published June 20, 2019 at 12:01 PM CDT

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who died last week at age 81, left a huge and widely ranging catalog of recordings.

Updated April 30, 2026 at 9:02 AM CDT

Updated April 30, 2026: A titan, the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, has left us. Hear essential MTT tracks from his staggeringly wide repertoire, from American mavericks like Ives, Ruggles and Harrison, to Debussy, Beethoven, Bernstein, Tchaikovsky, Reich and Mahler and many more. MTT April 22 at age 81.

Need a deep discovery experience? Try 1,000 years of music in this playlist from NPR Classical's Tom Huizenga, which explores everything from new releases to old favorites, and classics from the dawn of the recording era. Our mantra: Bach, Beethoven, before and beyond.

Stream: Spotify

Tom Huizenga

Tom Huizenga is a producer for NPR Music. He contributes a wide range of stories about classical music to NPR's news programs and is the classical music reviewer for All Things Considered. He appears regularly on NPR Music podcasts and founded NPR's classical music blog Deceptive Cadence in 2010.

See stories by Tom Huizenga