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about the music

Mason Bates:

"Born in the abandoned warehouses of Detroit in the early 1980's, electronica -- music fashioned from computers and all manner of electronic instruments -- has since moved well beyond its dance-floor origins. Today's electronica exists in an array of spaces, from underground lounges, where folks simply sit and listen, to intimate art openings or enormous clubs.

"My interest in this music began many years ago when I moved to New York City. Now active as a DJ in San Francisco and Rome, I find this side of my musical life merging rather startlingly with my activities in the concert music world. The possibility of an unlimited sound palette, comprised almost entirely of homemade sounds fashioned in my studio, fascinates me as a composer -- as well as the possibility of interacting with different kinds of spaces. Ever since electronica artists found ways to make this music sound good in empty, cavernous factories, it has always had a powerful connection to the spaces it inhabits.

"The title Rodeopteryx pays tribute to, firstly, the element of country and bluegrass that mischeviously plays under the work's surface (hence 'rodeo'); and, secondly, to the lopsided, hybrid nature of the work as something between ... concert music and electronica: Archaeopteryx is the first known hybrid of birds and dinosaurs."

about the composer		back to top

Mason Bates (b. 1977) is a composer, performer, and DJ who works in a wide variety of media, including orchestral, chamber, theatrical, and electronic music. Bates was raised in Virginia, where he studied piano with Hope Armstrong Erb and composition with Dika Newlin. He later enrolled in the joint degree program at Columbia University and the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, studying with Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, and David Del Tredici. He has also studied with Edmund Campion and Jorge Liderman at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bates' orchestral music has been performed across the United States. His commissions include the Naumburg Foundation, New Juilliard Ensemble, Phoenix Symphony, and the Juilliard School of Music for its 100th anniversary in 2005. In fall 2004 a new work, Omnivorous Furniture for sinfonietta and electronica, will be premiered in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella series at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bates has received awards from ASCAP, BMI, a Charles Ives Scholarship, the Jacob Druckman Memorial Prize from the Aspen Music Festival, and recently a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin.

Bates has written song cycles and theatrical works in collaboration with New York poet Kenneth Koch, as well as a music drama produced at the Clark Studio Theater in Lincoln Center. As electronica/techno artist Masonic, he has been a DJ at clubs, lounges, and fashion and art shows in New York City, San Francisco, and Rome, Italy, where he is based currently.

related websites
http://www.masonicelectronica.com