Philharmonia Fantastique in BBC Music Magazine

Mason speaks to Tom Stewart from UK’s BBC Music Magazine to talk about Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra ahead of its European premiere with Aurora Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre. 

“The music erupts from a glittering, primordial soup of sound, the players racing up and down the harmonic series and, on screen, a stave stretching out ahead of the audience like the famous opening of the Star Wars films. Bates’ music is slick and shiny – it’s an exciting, action-packed score with nothing to scare anyone off and plenty to keep young ears engaged.”

Tom also speaks to Animation Director, Jim Capobianco on his role “Usually the animation comes first and the music comes next, but for Philharmonia Fantastique we were collaborating all the way through because we had to work together to tell the story without any dialogue.” 

Mason: “As I was writing the music, I was constantly communicating with Jim about what visuals he thought could work. There’s a moment when Sprite goes inside the flute and Jim asked how she got there – did she trip fall or did she climb in out of curiosity? It felt like a minute detail, but he was trying to figure out the motivation of the character which helped me create a sound and a motivation for it in the score.”

Read the full review in BBC Music Magazine’s April issue.