He’s been battling brain cancer for more than a year and still turns to classical music, in particular Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for comfort.

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, at 77, is still alive and kicking, taking his half-century career in music to the Tanglewod Music Festival and after conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra said he feels really great.

He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer more than a year ago.

Since then, he’s taken buck-list trips to Tahiti and Nova Scotia and refuses to be confined by the illness.

He still composes and records and will conduct concerts in San Francisco, Miami, New York and beyond through next summer.

MTT, as he’s known, was for many years the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.