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photo by Matthew Washburn

Band Portfolio

Mason Bates brings the concert hall and the dance floor into conversation through music for band and electronica. His band works explore bold colors, rhythmic energy, and immersive textures, while his electronic music draws on his experience as a DJ—blending beats, atmosphere, and unexpected sounds. Across both, his music invites listeners into a world of movement and discovery.

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Band

For Band

A curtain-raiser equally informed by early modernism and 1970’s funk.

For Wind Ensemble

A quicksilver opener driven by the soul of Lee Petty, a famous Prohibition-era getaway driver (his son Richard Petty channeled those skills into NASCAR). It has equal parts big-band-era energy and bluesy nods to Petty’s southern roots.

For Band

Grooves hiccup quietly from measure to measure as rapidly as data on the silicon innards of a computer, yet the piece is entirely unplugged. Shattered, off-kilter jazz figuration.

For Band

Sideman begins with the solo percussionist residing in a chameleon ‘middle-ground’ grey area before gradually becoming the central focus of this mini concerto.

Band + Electronica

For band & laptop

Extracted from Alternative Energy, an ‘energy symphony’ that travels through centuries and continents, “Chicago, 2012” pays homage to the legendary particle accelerator at FermiLab near Chicago. The swirling, industrial sounds were recorded at the facility and are vividly integrated into a brash and jazzy soundworld.

For band & laptop

A fast-paced opener that imagines the orchestra as a mothership ‘docked’ by virtuosic soloists. Premiered by the YouTube Symphony at the Sydney Opera House before an online audience of millions, the piece showcases the orchestra’s top individual players in its brief solo passages.

For band & laptop

Imaginative electronics bring the buzzing white noise of Southern insects into the concert hall, pairing these sounds with fluorescent orchestral textures in this new spin on the pastoral.