In the first week of August, Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra will be heading to California where it will be performed by the San Diego Symphony and co-commissioner, San Francisco Symphony.
The Philharmonia Fantastique film has deep roots in the Bay Area, with much of the creative work completed at Skywalker Ranch & Aerial Workshop. Mason is thrilled to be attending both the Thursday matinee in San Francisco and the Friday night performance in San Diego.
Performance Dates:
Thursday, August 4nd, 2:00pm – San Francisco Symphony
Friday, August 5th, 7:30pm – San Francisco Symphony
Southbank Sinfonia will perform the world premiere of Mason’s Whalesong, under the baton of Kwamè Ryan at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on July 23, 2022. The work was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for this performance.
Whalesong celebrates the majesty and power of Earth’s largest animals. The piece integrates recordings of whalesong into a symphonic narrative about a lone whale, represented by a solitary horn in the opening, that ultimately reunites with its pod in the soaring finale.
Whalesong is dedicated to Sir David Attenborough in admiration for his lifelong efforts to help us better understand the natural world.
Sprite’s World, the new website for Mason’s Philharmonia Fantastique, is now live.
Meet our magical Sprite as they embark on a musical journey with the families of the orchestra. Discover the unique sounds, key characteristics and acoustics of each instrument family in the orchestra.
Sprites World has a range of activities for young minds including these printable baseball cards for each of the instruments in the orchestra. These digital baseball cards introduce you to individual instruments in the orchestra. Interactive cards allow you to listen to each instrument and printable cards are available to decorate your classroom or family home or to share online.
Sprite’s World is available in English and Spanish.
Dive inside Sprite’s World to gain a deeper understanding of the orchestra through visual storytelling and hands-on activities at SpritesWorld.org
WMFT open up their Opera Series for 2022 with a broadcast of the world premiere of Mason’s Grammy award-winning opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, performed by Santa Fe Opera conducted by Michael Christie.
The broadcast will also feature new conversations with Mason, librettist Mark Campbell and baritone Edward Parks.
Listen to the full broadcast onKHFM website on Saturday June 18 at 11am MDT.
Ed Parks 2017 Santa Fe Opera World Premiere Credit: Ken Howard
Mason Bates with Ruth Reinhardt (Conductor) and Daniil Trifonov (Pianist) Credit: Paige Bailey
The first week of June saw the San Francisco Symphony give the West Coast premiere of Mason Bates Piano Concerto, a piece that the orchestra co-commissioned with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Three subscription concert performances took place at Davies Hall with Daniil Trifonov (piano) and Ruth Reinhardt (conductor) receiving a great response from the audience and media.
“Unquestionably, the highlight of the evening was the new Piano Concerto by Mason Bates, co-commissioned by the Symphony, featuring soloist Daniil Trifonov, for whom it was written. Bates’s music has been heard often at Davies since 2009, and at the Cabrillo Festival longer than that, so local listeners have had plenty of opportunity to follow the tremendous artistic growth of the now 45-year-old composer. This is his most assured and masterful work yet”
In the first week of June, virtuoso artist Daniil Trifonov will perform the West Coast premiere of Mason’s Piano Concerto with co-commissioner, San Francisco Symphony.
Credit: Pete Cecchia
Conducted by Ruth Reinhardt in her San Francisco Symphony debut, the Piano Concerto will be performed at Davies Symphony Hall June 2 – 5 2022. The program opens with Lotta Wennäkoski’s Om fotspår och ljus (Of Footprints and Light) – Helsinki Variations – and is followed by Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 5.
Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra was performed by co-commissioners, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra last week.
“Philharmonia [Fantastique] demystifies the orchestra to such an extent that it becomes mystical all over again: Sprite zips through precisely rendered diagrams of the valves of a trumpet or the chamber of a cello. Color-coded sound waves from different sections race by in three-dimensional staves like a game of Guitar Hero.”
“With uncanny synchronicity, it transposes the composer’s sweeping score into a charming chronicle of a wide-eyed young listener — a “Sprite” — whose curiosity leads to a vibrantly colorful dive into not just the makings of an orchestra, but also the inner workings of its instruments.”
“Composer Mason Bates is one of the premier voices in classical music today, and if his new project goes to plan, he may help foster the next generation of musicmakers.”
Mason writes: “The film is a piece of art that is meant to be a gateway, meaning it’s not designed to be overly pedagogical. We wanted, for example, to teach many things about the instruments without any words. So, you just see the Sprite going into the valves of the brass or jumping on a violin string like a trampoline to present the concept of the harmonic series. These ideas can be expanded upon in the classroom later; we’re building an education program, a little ecosystem of materials around this film.”
Mason’s new production of his Grammy award-winning opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs saw its East Coast premiere by The Atlanta Opera last weekend, conducted by Michael Christie.
Bille Bruley and John Moore. Credit: Ken Howard
“To say the audience greeted the work joyfully would be an understatement.”
“With its compelling score by Bates that combines the melodic and the technologic, the driving and the calm, the sound and the solemn, it melds with the libretto, created by Campbell. That consists of a series of vignettes that jump back and forth in Jobs’ life-one that is not linear at all but circular–and show the human part of the man’s story, which was important to his philosophical growth.”
“The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs proves the not-to-be-missed opera of the season”
“These digital video elements, which occasionally include some exceptionally fast-paced montages and animations, are sequenced beautifully with Bates’ music, which beautifully merges live and electronic components, including sounds generated by a 1980s Macintosh computer as well as digitally appropriated sounds such as the drones of brass Buddhist prayer bowls. The electronic sounds do not go about drawing attention to themselves simply for being “electronic”; they instead come across as an impressively organic extension of the orchestra.”
“The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” is a magnificent, wondrous opera”
John Moore and Madison Leonard. Credit: Ken Howard
“Contemporary classical composer, 45-year-old Mason Bates, shaped from his mind a dazzling Grammy Award-winning opera around the life of Steve Jobs, with libretto by Mark Campbell (both of whom were in attendance at opening night). The opera is a wondrous and dramatic entry point for those who don’t think the opera is for them and a ground breaking path forward for those who have remained comfortable with the traditional trappings of what opera has been. The music is challenging, the stage design is a visual feat, and the opera is thought-provoking.”
The world premiere of Mason’s The Rhapsody of Steve Jobs, performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra and conducted by Eun Sun Kim will be broadcast on WRTI as part of ‘The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert’ on May 8th & 9th.
The broadcast will open with Mason’s The Rhapsody of Steve Jobs (co-commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra), an orchestral suite from Mason’s Grammy-winning opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, inspired by the visionary who presided over the creation of the iPhone.
On May 6th, The Atlanta Opera will livestream Mason Bates’ new production of his Grammy-winning Opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs on Spotlight Media, conducted by Michael Christie and directed by Tomer Zvulun.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is an opera in one act, with music by Mason Bates and libretto by Mark Campbell. Following the success of the original production by Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera and Indiana University, this new production is co-produced by The Atlanta Opera, Austin Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
