Benedict Mason, born on 23 February 1954, is a British

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. Mason was educated at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

(1971–75) and took a degree in film-making at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

(1975–78). He did not turn to composition until his early 30s, but his first acknowledged work, ''Hinterstoisser Traverse'' (1986), attracted attention from the European new music scene. His early works are decidedly

postmodern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...

in inclination, with considerable use of stylistic irony (some commentators have noted in these works a similarity to the music of

Mauricio Kagel Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer and academic teacher. Life and career Early life and education Mauricio Raúl Kagel was born on 24 December 1931 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an ...

). Mason then developed an interest in

polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...

ic music, and in works such as his Double Concerto one can hear a stylistic affinity to the later works of

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

. More recent works have concentrated on the spatial dimension of music, such as in his Music for European Concert Halls series, and sometimes have come close to installation art. Mason has composed in different genres, and his

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

''Playing Away'', with a

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

Howard Brenton Howard John Brenton FRSL (born 13 December 1942) is an English playwright and screenwriter, often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, and David Hare. Early years Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, so ...

, was commissioned by the

Munich Biennale The Munich Biennale () is a contemporary opera and music theatre festival in the city of Munich. The full German name is ''Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater'', literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial f ...

and premièred there in 1994 by

Opera North Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays a ...

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Article
by

Volker Straebel Volker Straebel (born 1969) is a German musicologist and composer and performer of experimental music. Life Straebel grew up in Berlin (West) where he was born. He studied musicology, philosophy and library science at the Technische Universität ...

on Mason's music
Interview (2004)
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Article by Bernhard König on Mason's Chaplin Operas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Benedict 1954 births 20th-century British classical composers 21st-century British classical composers English classical composers Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Alumni of the Royal College of Art Living people English male classical composers 20th-century English composers 21st-century English composers 21st-century English male composers 20th-century British male musicians

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