Mason Bates / Masonic

Few opportunities drop as rarely onto a composer's desk as the chance to work with a stunning orchestra right around the corner. In dreaming up what to create for The California Symphony, I found myself considering, very literally, the common ground that unites us here in the East Bay. Beneath us runs the Hayward Fault, which seemed especially restless last summer as I mapped out the work. A visit to the Berkeley Seismology Laboratory brought me into contact with the beautiful and eerie earthquakes recordings processed by Peggy Hellweg, and before long I had a runaway idea.

Music From Underground Spaces marries orchestra and electronics to vividly conjure up a variety of underground worlds. We begin with "Tunnels," where subways roar past kaleidoscopic orchestral figuration. As the work delves deeper in each movement, the propulsive motives and driving techno rhythms of the opening become gradually stretched out. Indeed, the unusual trajectory of this work takes us from blurry activity to slow-motion ambience.

The fleeting textures of "Tunnels" morph into the surreal effects of "Infernos," where a demonic techno groove, paired with flickering figuration, moves the work into one hell of a nightclub. The cultish tension accumulates until all this pressure forges "Crystalline Cities" - a kind of euphoric limbo, where sudden crescendos fuse into sparkling bits of diamond and crystal. Featuring the orchestra alone, this slow-motion, sparkling netherworld finally gives way to the glacial textures of "Tectonic Plates." Initially eerie, this final movement explores primarily the beautiful possibilities of the subsonic. The lowest members of the orchestra trade sonorities like slow-motion sea swells, with the ghostly earthquake recordings sounding like the gentle creaking of a boat.

Many thanks to Barry Jekowski and the musicians for their dedication in bringing this work to life.