User:Csowiki/Mason Bates

Mason Bates is an American composer of classical concert, chamber, theatrical, and electronic music, often combining orchestral sounds with electronic music in a new, hybrid musical genre. Currently Composer-in-Residence at the New York-based Young Concert Artists, Bates has won several awards, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Education

Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Bates studied piano with Hope Armstrong Erb and composition with Dika Newlin. He holds two bachelors degrees (Music Composition and English Literature) from the joint Columbia University-Juilliard School program in New York City. There, he studied with John Corigliano, David Del Tredici, and Samuel Adler.

Compositions and Performances

Bates’ works have been premiered by the San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas (The B-Sides), the all-male choral group Chanticleer (Sirens), the California Symphony (White Lies for Lomax), the National Symphony Orchestra (Liquid Interface), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Omnivorous Furniture), and the Biava Quartet (From Amber Frozen). In May 2007, the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored Bates with the Award in Music that “honors outstanding artistic achievement and acknowledges the composer who has arrived at his or her own voice.”

Bates has written works for the theater as well as the concert hall. His interest in theater has been influenced by his playwriting studies with Kenneth Koch, Arnold Weinstein and Mark Adamo. Trout Fishing in America—song cycles, theatrical works, and a music-drama for one actor and five musicians—was produced at Lincoln Center’s Clark Theater in 1997. As an underground hip-hop DJ, Bates is known by the name “Masonic.” His club performances include 111 Minna, Skylark, Cloud 9 and for Plado Media in San Francisco, Scarabocchio and Metaverso in Rome’s Testaccio district, and Zu Mir Oder Zu Dir and Kinzo in Berlin.

Awards

In addition to being a Guggenheim Fellow and a winner of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, Bates has received the Charles Ives scholarship and fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Jacob Druckman Memorial Prize from Aspen Music Festival, awards from ASCAP and BMI, and a fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center.

Residencies

Mason Bates is Composer-in-Residence with Young Concert Artists and Young American Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony. In Fall 2010, Mason Bates along with composer Anna Clyne will become the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Current Activity and Future Projects

During the 2009-2010 season, Leonard Slatkin and the Pittsburgh Symphony will perform Liquid Interface. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Esa-Pekka Salonen will perform Music From Underground Spaces. Haochen Zhang—Gold Medalist of the Van Cliburn American Composers Invitational—will perform Bates’ White Lies for Lomax for solo piano on Zhang’s new CD with Harmonia Mundi. Bates has been commissioned by the Ringling Arts Festival to write a Trio for horn, violin and piano.

Bates is currently pursuing a doctoral degree from the University of California, Berkeley with Edmund Campion.