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The music of Mason Bates fuses innovative orchestral writing, and imaginative narrative forms brought to life by cutting edge sound design. A composer of symphonic music who often includes live electronica in his orchestral music, Mason has become known as an artist who moves fluidly between those two worlds, performing on electronic drum pad and laptop; for example, with the National Symphony Orchestra in his Liquid Interface at Carnegie Hall, or creating an evening of concert music and electronica with members of The Berlin Philharmonic in the former East Side. Awarded both a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and an American Academy in Berlin Prize, he is a member of the acclaimed New York-based Young Concert Artists.
The 2009 Season featured the premiere of The B-Sides, a large work inhabiting various surreal landscapes for orchestra and electronica, commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, whose maestro, Michael Tilson Thomas, conducted the premiere. Tilson Thomas also led the YouTube Symphony at Carnegie Hall in a “preview performance” of an excerpt, Warehouse Medicine, which was received with cheers. Another important composition was brought to life by the renowned “orchestra of voices,” Chanticleer, which premiered Sirens, a work exploring hypnotic and alluring siren poetry from various cultures.
Last summer, Mason’s Rusty Air in Carolina, commissioned by the Winston-Salem Symphony, was performed by the National Repertory Orchestra under the baton of Robert Moody. The work has subsequently appeared on concert programs ranging from the Virginia Symphony to the Charleston Symphony.
Raised in Virginia where he studied piano with Hope Armstrong Erb and composition with Dika Newlin, Mason enrolled in the Columbia-Juilliard program in New York City. Earning degrees in English literature and music composition, he studied primarily with John Corigliano. He also worked under David Del Tredici and Samuel Adler in addition to playwriting studies under Arnold Weinstein and Kenneth Koch. Now working with Edmund Campion at the University of California, Berkeley, he has found Berkeley's Center For New Music and Audio Technologies, an important influence on his approach to electro-acoustic composition.
His awards include a Charles Ives scholarship and fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Jacob Druckman Memorial Prize from Aspen Music Festival, ASCAP and BMI awards, and a Fellowship from Tanglewood. Currently composer-in-residence for the California Symphony, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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© 2012 Arizona Musicfest. All rights reserved.
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