# Mason Bates



## timothyjuddviolin

*Mason Bates expanding the orchestra with electronica*

An interesting new piece written in 2009 by a rising star composer:

New Electronic Sound Worlds


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## PetrB

I feel quite the opposite of "interesting" and "rising star composer."

This sounds like the same rather bland schtick I heard in his _Mothership_, which was somewhat fun but one time through only, it struck me as a film score styled amalgam of highly conservative musical language, languishing about in want of a film for it to support.





Clearly, Bates knows 'how to composer,' but I find the music, notes, and overall syntax well on the wrong side of banal, the incorporated electronics not at all really newsworthy, and although incorporated well, nothing at all exciting.

When I heard _Mothership_, I thought his appointment as composer in residence was an extremely safe bet, calculated for its paper thin and extremely superficial 'hip cred' factor, to be an easy digested pseudo modernism to set before aging and conservative concert audiences.

He is (his music is) the perfectly presentable poster boy of no-risk / no challenge electronic-acoustic new pops classical music, perfectly safe to bring home to your parents or grandparents without worry of anything coming up which would be in the least way controversial or confrontational.

Now, with this piece of Bates' from a number of years later than his _Mothership_ which sounds as if there has been absolutely no further development of the composer's harmonic language, and no deeper investigation of electronics nearly as far as they could go -- and as has been done better and in greater depth by others since the sixties, well before Bates was born -- that all gives me little hope this composer will deliver anything but rather more of the same in the future.

I find this, _Mothership_, and other pieces I've heard by him really 'lame,' not hip or very "current" at all.

He may end up later as being thought of as a sort of Leroy Anderson of his generation, a composer with a good deal of craft who wrote the lightest of the lightest pops classical fare, the only difference now being that Bates' "typewriter" is now electric.
Leroy Anderson ~ The typewriter





ADD P.s. Just imagine, Edgard Varèse's _Amériques_, final version, was completed in 1927.


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## PetrB

Violin and electronics -- much more interesting, not banal, it makes what Bates is doing 'look' like a kindergarten student's fingerpainting.

Junghae Lee ~ _Corona_ for violin and electronics, live performance.


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## Aramis

PetrB said:


> it struck me as a film score styled amalgam of highly conservative musical language, languishing about in want of a film for it to support


So now you can throw all your essays about how composers shouldn't write this way to the trashcan, if it turns out that someone like that can be successful resident composer in large city.

I'm purchasing his scores to study and the "On Form and Harmony" by Hans Zimmer right away.


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## Blake

Aramis said:


> So now you can throw all your essays about how composers shouldn't write this way to the trashcan, if it turns out that someone like that can be successful resident composer in large city.
> 
> I'm purchasing his scores to study and the "On Form and Harmony" by Hans Zimmer right away.


Well, if all you want is to be popular then just aspire to be the next Justin Beiber? It seems the attention is what you're really after. We know what crowd that attracts, and the intellectuals will hardly be moved. Why waste time? Go write a pop song! Call Kanye!


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> So now you can throw all your essays about how composers shouldn't write this way to the trashcan, if it turns out that someone like that can be successful resident composer in large city.
> 
> I'm purchasing his scores to study and the "On Form and Harmony" by Hans Zimmer right away.


I wouldn't advise that: this is all a matter of faddish temporal shifts of collective taste -- by the time you or I have read, studied and absorbed Hans Zimmer's _On Form and Harmony,_ (a mere pop at just $59.95!) and studied and absorbed the styles of Mr. Bates and that composer Allevi, who wrote that scintillating popular masterpiece violin concerto a year or two back -- this will all be out of fashion, some other voguish trend having replaced it.

Stick with how and what you can write, man.

_"Be yourself, everyone else is taken." ~ O. Wilde_


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## Aramis

Vesuvius said:


> Well, if all you want is to be popular then just aspire to be the next Justin Beiber?


I'd love to but I'm too old already and too creepy to be little girls hero.


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> I'd love to but I'm too old already and too creepy to be little girls hero.


I soooooo have you trumped in the old and creepy department that you will never catch up while I am still alive


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## dgee

That Mason Bates - he sure is orchestra management bait with his hip look and smarmily inoffensive music. Agree entirely with PetrB - also, if it's been a play to be the perfectly programmeable contemporary composer he's done a really good job. 

I've seen programming in action, been a part of it in fact - the rise of Mr Bates is a vote of no confidence in the audience/public ability to appreciate music


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## Blake

Aramis said:


> I'd love to but I'm too old already and too creepy to be little girls hero.


Ah, I keep forgetting you guys aren't young and good-looking like myself.


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## PetrB

dgee said:


> That Mason Bates - he sure is orchestra management bait with his hip look and smarmily inoffensive music. Agree entirely with PetrB - also, if it's been a play to be the perfectly programmeable contemporary composer he's done a really good job.
> 
> I've seen programming in action, been a part of it in fact - the rise of Mr Bates is a vote of no confidence in the audience/public ability to appreciate music


... and a symphonic orchestral board making such a safe decision to appoint that any hint of 'adventurous' or 'risk' is entirely absent.


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## Aramis

Vesuvius said:


> Ah, I keep forgetting you guys aren't young and good-looking like myself.


Considering the context of discussion, you've just stated that your looks are such that could enable you to become another Justin Bieber.

I HAVE NO QUESTIONS


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## Blake

Aramis said:


> Considering the context of discussion, you've just stated that your looks are such that could enable you to become another Justin Bieber.
> 
> I HAVE NO QUESTIONS


Could've been a jestfully smug statement. Don't try so hard. :tiphat:


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## Guest

1960.

Orchestra already expanded. In 1960. And this was not the first, either. (It's just my favorite of the early ones.)


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## PetrB

some guy said:


> 1960.
> 
> Orchestra already expanded. In 1960. And this was not the first, either. (It's just my favorite of the early ones.)


All this existing previous to the 21st century 'evidence' leads me to conclude that whomever appointed Mr. Bates to that Chicago Symphony Orchestra composer in residence post was obliviously out of touch, or calculatedly condescending toward the Symphony's audiences.


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## Albert7

One of the most innovative composers of the younger generation. Always searching for the perfect blend of experimentation and populist approaches.






Here he talked to Hilary Hahn in this wonderful clip.


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## Albert7

Bates's composition Mothership remains probably his most popular one that's played. Very awesome and fierce piece.


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## janxharris

*Mason Bates - any good?*

According to wikipedia, Mason Bates (1977):



> is a Grammy-nominated American composer of symphonic music and DJ of electronic dance music. Distinguished by his innovations in orchestration and large-scale form, Bates is best known for his expansion of the orchestra to include electronics. The second-most performed living composer in the United States, he has worked closely with the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra where he worked as composer-in-residence. In 2015 he was named composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (their first ever composer-in-residence appointment), and recently had his contract renewed for another two years though 2019-20.


I was surprised that a search on TC found no results. Is his music any good and does he deserve to be the "second-most performed living composer in the United States"?

Mothership
Violin Concerto


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## Art Rock

janxharris said:


> I was surprised that a search on TC found no results.


Thread 1
Thread 2

Thread 3


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## janxharris

Art Rock said:


> Thread 1
> Thread 2
> 
> Thread 3


Thanks - and yet a "Mason Bates" search only brings up my thread.
Sorry if I've wasted people's time.


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## Art Rock

The TC search function sucks, better use google - that's how I found these threads. Just type in:

site:www.talkclassical.com "Mason Bates"


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## janxharris

Art Rock said:


> The TC search function sucks, better use google - that's how I found these threads. Just type in:
> 
> site:www.talkclassical.com "Mason Bates"


Thanks Art Rock


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## Simon Moon

I have a CD I originally bought for Samuel Barber's Violin concerto, but I like the Bates violin concerto quite a bit more.

It is very modern, and kind of "playful".


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