SAN FRANCISCO — On a sunny Saturday morning in September, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is padding around his house in stocking feet, dressed in blue jeans and a vibrant blue sweater, his complexion ruddy. He and his poodle have just returned in high spirits from the local farmers market. In his garage, a high school friend is poring over a collection of rocks. In the living room, Tilson Thomas points out an early 20th century poster of Bessie Thomashefsky that faces a costume worn by James Brown -- the mother of New York Yiddish theater more or less meeting the godfather of soul. An arts consultant is just leaving; he and Tilson Thomas have been discussing a Gilbert and Sullivan show for next year's annual June festival of the San Francisco Symphony, Tilson Thomas' orchestra since 1995.
Rooted in Yiddish theater
Michael Tilson Thomas' grandfather was larger than life. Tilson Thomas never knew him, but 'The Thomashefskys' helped.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
These things (with the possible exception of the poodle and the produce) are related.
Let's begin with the rocks. The collection, gathered by Tilson Thomas on hiking trips with his father, Ted Thomas, is a relic from his childhood in North Hollywood.
Bessie, the model for the zany, wisecracking Jewish comedian Fanny Brice, was Ted's mother, and she spent her weekends when her grandson was growing up entertaining him with numbers and reminiscences from the old days.
It was she who pointed him toward a career in show business -- a career that now links him to James Brown (about whom he recently did a radio program), along with Gilbert and Sullivan and innumerable other forebears.
Indeed, Bessie's husband, Boris Thomashefsky, was the first star of Yiddish theater in America. A flamboyant celebrity to New York Jews, Boris pranced around Manhattan with Diamond Jim Brady, carried a jewel-encrusted riding crop and rode in his Stanley Steamer through the crowded Lower East Side, tossing his top hat to his adoring fans. Thirty thousand of those fans lined those streets for his funeral in 1939, five years before Tilson Thomas was born.
Hence, "The Thomashefskys," an evening-length entertainment that Tilson Thomas will present with the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week. The show -- re-creating a lost era through song, narration, film and theater -- was first produced at Carnegie Hall in 2005 and has been mounted with the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Symphony and the New World Symphony, Tilson Thomas' training orchestra in Miami. Each locale had a different audience. New York was the out-of-town tryout. In Florida, some old-timers still think of Tilson Thomas as Thomashefsky's grandson, and the kibitzers weren't shy about shouting out what songs they thought should be included. In San Francisco, he's simply MTT, the city's stellar music director.
