Mason Bates News
American composer
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2024-03-29
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2024-03-21 10:56:00
For young classical audiences the sound is the message
[…] second step is to create a solution. For several decades in its search for a new younger audience classical music has been trying to solve the wrong problem. Putting the music through a programmatic blender to produce the aural equivalent of baby food is not the solution. New audiences are bass literate; for the younger audience the sound is the message. Sonically chewable music is already in the repertoire - Pléïades, The Rite of Spring, Arcana, and so on. Sometime DJ Mason Bates is mining this mother lode very successfully with his works for orchestra and electronics. An example of how to set the gamma rhyths bouncing is the bass reproduced in the Grammy-nominated San Francisco Symphony's SACD of Bates' Liquid Interface. Classical music must also look beyond existing repertoire to give new younger audiences the sound fix they crave. Digital technologies now make sound-shaping experiments possible. Yet the classical music world throws a hissy fit anytime anyone mentions […]
2024-03-06 12:30:00
Hercules, Komische Oper, 3 March 2024
Hercules – Brandon Cedel Dejanira – Paula Murrihy Iole – Penny Sofroniadou Hyllus – Caspar Singh Lichas – Susan Zarrabi Priest of Jupiter – Noam Heinz Choral soloists – Martin Fehr, Taiki MiyashitaDirector – Barrie KoskyDesigns – Katrin Lea TagDramaturgy – Zsolt Horpácsy, Johanna WallLighting – Joachim KleinAssistant director – Tobias RibitzkiChoral Soloists of the Komische Oper (director: David Cavelius) Orchestra of the Komische OperDavid Bates (conductor)Images: Monika RittershausDejanira (Paula Murrihy), Lichas (Susan Zarrabi) Handel’s ‘musical drama’ – an interesting term, though we can sometimes make too much of such things – Hercules has never proved especially popular. The composer’s public at the time and for a long while after tended to prefer his Biblical oratorios. Since the revival and, latterly, the craze for his Italian opere serie, they have ruled the roost. Semele, another ‘musical drama’, ‘after the manner of an oratorio’, has fared better since its modern stage revival […]
2024-02-05 09:09:00
Not everyone climbs mountains
[…] But without a constant modest but essential rejuvenation of concert goers and mountaineers, the infrastructure for both disciplines will slowly atrophy. There is no mass market for classical music and there never will be; but there is a heterogeneous and highly fissile conglomeration of small overlapping niches. Which means the opportunity exists to expand the market in a modest way, and, most importantly, to rejuvenate it by developing new niches.My listening in India included Mason Bates Works for Orchestra recorded by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas on the SFSO's own record label. In his sleeve note the composer explains "I look to the digital world as an important twenty-first century expansion of the orchestral world". Mason Bates has also worked as a DJ and techno artist using the name Masonic in clubs and lounges around San Francisco, and this means he has a deep understanding of the new […]
2023-11-23 07:28:00
Taking its energy from the youth of the performers: Olivia Fuchs' new production of Handel's Ariodante at Royal Academy Opera
Handel: Ariodante - Angharad Rowlands - Royal Academy Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)Handel: Ariodante; Royal Academy Opera, director: Olivia Fuchs, conductor: David Bates; Royal Academy of MusicReviewed 21 November 2023Stylishly modern and exploring gender boundaries, this was a production that took its energy from the sheer youth of the performersAt the start of Olivia Fuchs' new production of Handel's Ariodante for Royal Academy Opera, the cast started writing The Rules on a large display board. The first one, 'The King rules by divine right', then continuing with affirmations of male succession, gender being binary, and so on. These neatly summarised that male-centric, patriarchal world of Handel's libretto, yet still they come over as somewhat shocking when seen all written down together.Yet, part of the attraction of Ariodante is the immense sympathy Handel brings to the heroine Ginevra and her plight. Yes, the ending is the easy lieto fine that was expected but […]
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