Mason discusses the powers and perils of musical storytelling in a new blog post for The Arts Desk ahead of the UK premiere of ‘Liquid Interface’ at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday, March 30.
“Musical storytelling is on my mind this month as the London Philharmonic Orchestra performs Liquid Interface, my first large-scale exploration of musical narrative in the form of a “water symphony”. Premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2007, the work features watery orchestral textures and electronic sounds that range from field recordings of glaciers calving, to trip-hop beats built out of water samples.”

“While the surface of Liquid Interface has many new elements, the programmatic approach dates to the 19th Century. But spokes of it have shot in all directions, including into the world of rock opera.“
“After a century of symphonic music defined by processes – from serialism to minimalism – I find it exhilarating to reexamine the programmatic approach with 21st Century sounds. Getting an orchestra to sync with digital sounds is not easy, but for me a world of imaginative possibilities awaits on the other side.”
Read the full article on The Arts Desk.
The UK premiere of ‘Liquid Interface’ will take place on Wednesday, March 30 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner as part of the Southbank Centre’s Soundscape Festival. For more information and tickets, visit the London Philharmonic Orchestra website.