“Mason Bate’s exuberantly inventive music expands the symphonic palette with sounds of the digital age, animating large-scale narrative forms reminiscent of the nineteenth-century sound. A symphonist whose reach extends from the concert hall to beyond (and back), Bates employs a huge stylistic canvas to tell big stories, an approach he appreciates in works by Beethoven, in concept albums by artists of the 1960s and ‘70s (such as Pink Floyd), and at 1990s Detroit warehouse parties (of DJs Richie Hawtin, Derrick May, and Juan Atkins). Bates himself spent years as DJ in San Francisco, Chicago, and Berlin, time he dedicated to evolving a unique compositional language that seamlessly integrated a new sound world into orchestra”. These sentences are taken from the CD booklet and there is no better description of Mason Bates’ art.

This music communicates an incredible energy. Mason Bates is without doubt one of the finest composers of our time, and the performance of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra are (as usual) outstanding! 

About Mason Bates : http://www.masonbates.com/