Mason Bates’ multitracks – Liberation

Electro

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–The American composer passionate about electronic music and sampling of styles presents his “Piano Concerto” whose French creation will be entrusted by the Radio-France Philharmonic and its dedicatee Daniil Trifonov.–

Ten years ago, Mason Bates delivered Alternative energy. A symphony commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performed for the first time under the direction of Riccardo Muti and recorded by the equally prestigious San Francisco Symphony under that of Michael Tilson Thomas. The profession of sovereign orchestrator, projecting the listener into an ancestral Asia and into science fiction landscapes; poststravinskian vitality of rhythmic writing; a harmonious language of great dynamism, which mixes functional and non-functional harmony, and pandiatonism, or the free use of the seven degrees of a mode: this 35-year-old composer has established himself as an emulator of John Adams. With the difference that he does not hesitate to mingle with the orchestra benches, to beat on his drum machine and to trigger sampled or synthesized sounds with his laptop.

There is certainly nothing new in enriching the tonal palette of an instrumental ensemble with electronic sounds. The composers of the European avant-garde of the 1960s did not hesitate to do so. Originally these sounds were recorded on magnetic tape and the conductor tried to synchronize the musicians’ playing with the flow of him. Then software appeared for the electronic transformation and spatialization of sound, in real time, allowing Boulez and his spouses to create artistic music in tune with the digital future of the world. Mason Bates approaches the integration of electronics in a different way. NOT…

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