Michael Tilson Thomas [Art Streiber]

MICHAEL Tilson Thomas doesn’t fit the profile of an old man: he has always been the most alive, articulate and effervescent of American conductors, and many will remember his time in charge of the London Symphony Orchestra (through the 1980s/90s) as a time of sassy glamour as well as classy music-making.

It was no surprise that he subsequently went off to run the well-heeled San Francisco Symphony. And the other great project of his life has been the New World Symphony he created in super-cool Miami Beach.

But now, unbelievably, he’s about to turn 80. And it’s no secret that for the past couple of years he’s been struggling with a cruel species of brain cancer that has, to say the least, slowed him down.

The music world has watched and waited. But thankfully he’s still with us. And this week he’s at the Barbican with his old band the LSO, for two predictably emotion-filled performances of Mahler’s great “Resurrection” Symphony on October 20 and 23.

Mahler has always been a Tilson Thomas speciality, done with a combination of dazzle and depth. And it follows that these concerts are a seriously hot ticket: you may have to join a waiting list. But it’s worth making the effort – not least because London may not get the chance to see him in action again.

Potential consolation for those who fail to get in is that MTT, as he’s known, has been sorting out the compositions which have long been a semi-hidden sideline to his career on the podium. And a stylishly produced set of CDs has just issued on the Pentatone label, under the collective title Grace.

If you don’t know MTT’s own music, its beauty and charm will surprise you. Otherwise, try hard for the concerts: barbican.org.uk

• There’s no escape from Mahler this week, with two other symphonies that will be easier to get into than MTT’s. The 5th gets done by the Philharmonia under Marin Alsop at the Festival Hall, Oct 24 (southbankcentre.co.uk). And the 7th gets done at Smith Square, Oct 19, by the Salomon Orchestra: one of London’s best non-professionals, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year (sinfoniasmithsq.org.uk)

• If you ever thought period performance was stuffy, you’ve clearly never seen the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment roll up their sleeves and take Purcell or whoever back into the no-frills environments where a lot of “old” music was first heard. Like ale-houses. They call these performances Night Shifts. And there’s one on October 21 at the Old Queens Head, Essex Road, N1, where members of the OAE will play chamber works by Buxtehude (the organist so revered in 18th-century Germany that JSBach walked 250 miles to pay him homage), and Johann Meister (a 17th-century musician imprisoned for defending what would these days be called workers’ rights). Details: oae.co.uk

• One of my desert-island pianists, Benjamin Grosvenor, is anything but deserted at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, October 18, where he plays piano quartets with “friends” – one of them his wife. southbankcentre.co.uk

• A less well-known keyboard name is Guy Murgatroyd, but people tell me he’s one to watch. And he plays solo, sadly without “friends”, at the intimate 1901 Arts Club by Waterloo station: a recital based around the exuberantly jazz-inflected piano music of Soviet-era composer Nikolai Kapustin. October 18. 1901artsclub.com