From March 9–12, MTT conducted the New York Philharmonic in the NY premiere of his song cycle Meditations on Rilke, featuring mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Dashon Burton.

Meditations on Rilke sets Bohemian-Austrian lyrical poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems to music. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Tilson Thomas distilled the aura of each poem, precisely capturing not only its imagery and dramatic shape but also the emotional sense of melancholy, awe, faith, or dread at its core.”

Meditations on Rilke represents a personal story for MTT as he connected his musical and familial heritage through the project. On the program, he said,  “Music was a kind of lifelong journal, or confessional companion, into which new entries were always being added,” he says of his family. “It is much the same for me, and in composing these Meditations on Rilke, whose poems are so varied in mood and character, my own lifelong ‘musical journal’ was a lens through which to view and express this poetry.”

The program also included Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 (“Great”).