Fri 8.5 Desert Transport

MASON BATES (b. 1977)

The music of Mason Bates fuses innovative orchestral writing, the rhythms of electronica and techno, and imaginative narrative forms brought to life by cutting edge sound design. An advocate for bringing new music to new spaces, he has become known as an artist who moves fluidly between them - performing on electronic drumpad and laptop, for example, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under John Adams at Disney Hall, or integrating members of the San Francisco Symphony into an evening of DJing at the SF club Mezzanine. Currently serving as a composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony, he is on the roster of Opus 3 Artists. To quote Symphony Magazine, “Mason Bates, or someone like him, was bound to appear sooner or later. Bates is a fast-rising young composer of orchestral music, and also a deejay. In the latter guise, he performs at electronica clubs under the nom-de-laptop DJ Masonic. Many artists in one of these worlds have dabbled in the other. But Bates is the first to carry on two careers in tandem, and win credibility in both arenas.” Notable works include Liquid Interface (2007), a water symphony commissioned by the National Symphony; The B-Sides (2009), a symphonic suite commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony; and Rusty Air in Carolina (2006), a pastoral work commissioned by the Winston-Salem Symphony. He has worked closely with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, and composer/conductor John Adams. In 2010, Bates was commissioned to write for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011, an ensemble composed of musicians from around the world. His piece Mothership was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and went on Youtube in October 2010. He graduated from the Columbia University-Juilliard School Exchange Program, with a BA in music composition and English literature, where he studied with John Corigliano, David Del Tredici, and Samuel Adler. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a PhD in composition in 2008. Mason Bates returns to Cabrillo Festival this season for his third residency. Marin Alsop and the Festival Orchestra performed Rusty Air in Carolina in 2007 and Liquid Interface in 2008. On opening night of the 2011 Festival, August 5, Cabrillo will present the west coast premiere of Desert Transport, a purely acoustic work commissioned and premiered by Arizona MusicFest earlier this year.

www.masonicelectronica.com

Photo by: Lydia Danmiller