Skip to product information
1 of 1

Bates: Philharmonia Fantastique, Outwater (CD)

Bates: Philharmonia Fantastique, Outwater (CD)
Regular price $16.99
Sale price $16.99 Regular price

This short-ish concerto for orchestra introduces the woodwind, string, brass and percussion families with dashes of jazz and techno. It’s a noble enterprise, with deeper ideals about human diversity and unity. Bates is, as ever, an engaging musical storyteller.

BBC Music Magazine
Use the left and right arrow keys to switch tabs.

Composer Mason Bates’ Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra is a 25-minute concerto for orchestra and animated film that introduces the instruments, sections and inner workings of a symphony orchestra. Recorded by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under conductor Edwin Outwater, the work was co-commissioned by the CSO and five other American orchestras.

The music gives each orchestral family its own distinctive sound world: noir-inspired jazz for the woodwinds, sweeping lyricism for the strings, techno-infused fanfares for the brass and an exuberant drum-circle atmosphere for the percussion. Guided by a magical Sprite, the accompanying film travels through the orchestra and even inside its instruments, ultimately showing how these contrasting voices combine to create a single musical ensemble.

Created by Bates with director and sound designer Gary Rydstrom and animator Jim Capobianco, Philharmonia Fantastique was recorded by the CSO at Orchestra Hall in February 2021 and released by Sony Classical in 2022. In 2023, the album received the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical, recognizing engineers Shawn Murphy, Charlie Post and Gary Rydstrom and mastering engineer Michael Romanowski.

2022 Grammy Award, Best Engineered Recording, Classical

View full details

Recently viewed