MasonBates

Mason Bates Appointed Kennedy Center’s First Composer-In-Residence

During his three-year residency, Bates will compose music across artistic genres and curate a new contemporary music series. He will also advance initiatives that use technology to educate audiences and will encourage the inclusion of local artists and DJs in performances at the Kennedy Center.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

Mason Bates standing in front of a brick wall

Mason Bates. Photo by Ryan Schude, courtesy Kennedy Center

The Kennedy Center has announced that composer Mason Bates will join the Center in the 2015-2016 season as its first Composer-In-Residence. During his three-year residency, Bates will compose music across artistic genres and curate a new contemporary music series. He will also advance initiatives that use technology to educate audiences and will encourage the inclusion of local artists and DJs in performances at the Kennedy Center.

“The Kennedy Center’s astonishingly diverse programs played such a crucial role in my early education in Virginia, so it thrills me to join this great team as Composer-In-Residence,” said Mason Bates. “With its rich variety of art forms, the Kennedy Center is the perfect place for new art to impact not only the surrounding communities, but the national conversation as well.”

Planned Kennedy Center commissions over the course of Bates’s residency include works for the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, the Fortas Chamber Music Concerts, and performances of contemporary dance. He will also be featured as a performer at many Kennedy Center performances across genres.

The new contemporary music series will present the works of living composers using Bates’s signature re-imagining of the classical music experience. His innovative ideas for integrating traditional symphonic works with new music and performing them in alternative venues have attracted large and enthusiastic crowds to new music concerts throughout the United States and abroad. More information on Bates’s work as Composer-In-Residence—including new commissions, the contemporary music series, and other performances during the 2015-2016 season—will be announced at the Kennedy Center’s season announcement in March.

(—from the press release)