Bates energizes Philly

Mason Bates, the Richmond-bred composer of symphonic works combining traditional instruments with electronica – sounds generated on and played back through a laptop computer – performs his “Alternative Energy” with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra on April 6-8.

In this and other works, the 40-year-old Bates, currently conducting a performance and curation residency at the Kennedy Center in Washington, seeks to make “music that’s fresh and inevitable. If it has both of those things, it can still surprise you,” he tells the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/417489783.html

Bates, who in recent years has become one of the most frequently performed living US composers, will introduce his “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” at the Santa Fe Opera this summer. He is at work on an as-yet untitled choral-orchestral work to be introduced in May 2018 by the Richmond Symphony and Symphony Chorus.