Boston Modern Orchestra Project & Gil Rose - Mason Bates: Mothership (2015)

BMOP/sound features innovative San Francisco-based composer Mason Bates on its latest release. The disc's eponymous work, Mothership, received its premiere in a live broadcast from the Sydney Opera House with the YouTube Symphony in 2001. Bates, who enjoys a parallel career as a DJ and curator of pioneering new music projects, integrates electronic sounds with the orchestra in Mothership - also featuring special guest improvisers Jason Moran on FM Rhodes and Su Chang on guzheng - and in the Appalachian-inspired Rusty Air in Carolina. Bates channels the depths of the ocean and Arizonan desert vistas, respectively, in Sea-Blue Circuitry and Desert Transport. With the witty, agile concert opener Attack Decay Sustain Release, this collection demonstrates why Mason Bates has become one of the most-performed orchestral composers of the present day. His works are given exceptionally insightful and polished performances by the expert Boston Modern Orchestra Project under conductor Gil Rose.