Body of Work Electronic: Musicfest Presents Modern Composer Mason Bates

By Kevin Downey

If Mozart were alive today, he’d undoubtedly be a DJ mixing tunes for a gyrating crowd in Ibiza. If Beethoven were alive, he’d be posting new music on Facebook.

These scenarios play out for fun in the minds of classical music fans. But there’s a serious question underlying this fun: Where are today’s great classical music composers?

Here’s an answer: One of them is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and his white-hot career has been taking off since early this decade, with some performances in Arizona. He’s a DJ mixing electronica who also performs with world-class orchestras, often on digital drums or a laptop.

His name is Mason Bates and he’ll be in the North Valley in late February for four performances as part of the month-long Arizona Musicfest. His music is ethereal, gorgeous, lush, and intoxicating.

“I started on the piano, but I always knew I wanted to compose,” says Bates. “I found a way to combine both in a crazy concerto I wrote in 1998 for synthesizer, which I performed with the Phoenix Symphony in 2001 with [Musicfest artistic director] Robert Moody.”

Bates, a 32-year-old Virginia native with a shaggy early-Beatles haircut, is also a straightforward classical music composer. He’s a composer-in-residence at the California Symphony and, beginning next fall, he’ll be composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony. Since 2000, he’s been composer-in-residence at New York’s prestigious Young Concert Artists. He’s a composer who performs. When he does, it’s largely to get a firsthand feel for how electronic music fits in with classical instruments.

“The world of electronics is unmapped territory in the concert world,” says Bates. “When I’m in the percussion section with the laptop, it’s for technical reasons—I like to take cues from the conductor. But it’s also a musical decision—electronics need to operate within the orchestral setting in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the orchestra.”

Bates will perform his pieces, including “Rusty Air in Carolina” commissioned in 2006 by the Winston-Salem Symphony, at this season’s Arizona Musicfest.

Arizona Musicfest performances run Feb. 1–March 7 in venues throughout the North Valley. Mason Bates will perform with the Arizona Musicfest All-Star Orchestra conducted by Robert Moody: A World Class Opening on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m.; Opera Grand and Glorious on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 7:30 p.m.; Orchestra Fireworks on Friday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m.; and Symphony Fantastique on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 3 p.m. All performances are at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church, 25150 N. Pima Rd., Scottsdale. Box office: (480) 488-0806. Visit masonicelectronica.com to sample Mason Bates’s music.