Who is Mason Bates?
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. Highlights of the coming season include performing with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony in The B-Sides – a dance suite that drops into five surreal landscapes – and curating the opening of New World Symphony’s new Frank Gehry-designed hall. Currently serving as a composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony, Mason is an American composer living in the Bay Area of California.
