Meet Our Composers
Chanticleer is pleased to be premiering works by four distinguished composers in 2008-09. Click here for a full list of commissioned works in the ensemble's 30-year history.
Mason Bates
 Mason Bates / Masonic, the young San Francisco composer and DJ who recently became the first dual recipient of the Prize de Rome and the Berlin Prize, moves fluidly between the worlds of classical music and electronica. Currently busy with both commissions and performance engagements, he has appeared at venues such as The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, and Berlin's Volksbühne. Spanning the classical concert hall to the clubs and lounges where he DJs electronica, his music was recently described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "lovely to hear and ingeniously constructed." His recent symphonic work, Omnivorous Furniture, for symphonietta & electronica, was commissioned by The Los Angeles Philharmonic and premiered at Disney Hall, and it is since been performed by the American Composers Orchestra in New York and by The Oakland Symphony. His releases as Masonic are available at iTunes and other major internet distributors.
Active as a performer, he has played his concerto for synthesizer with The Atlanta and Phoenix Symphonies, and he also stays busy as a DJ of trip-hop, hip-hop, and electronica at spaces such as 111 Minna and Magnet in San Francisco. Members of The Berlin Philharmonic joined him at Berlin's Roter Salon, the famed club in the former East Side, for a concert of his chamber music and electronica, which he performed live with David Arend (MarsBassMan) on upright bass.
A variety of purely acoustic works complement his diverse portfolio, including a string quartet commissioned by The Naumburg Foundation and a many works for the voice. His strong interest in the theater has been highly informed by playwriting studies under Arnold Weinstein, Mark Adamo, and Kenneth Koch, with whom he produced several collaborations. He became composer-in-residence of the acclaimed Young Concert Artists in 2000, and he has written chamber music for YCA artists such as Alexander Fitterstein and The Claremont Trio.
Studying English literature and music composition at Columbia University and The Juilliard School, he worked primarily with John Corigliano, and has also studied with David Del Tredici and Samuel Adler. He currently works with Edmund Campion at UC Berkeley, where the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) provides resources and expertise in electronic music. Now busy with a commission for The National Symphony, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Website:
http://www.masonicelectronica.com/
David Conte
 David Conte (b. 1955) is currently Professor of Composition and Conductor of the Conservatory Chorus at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has received commissions from Chanticleer, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Dayton, Oakland and Stockton Symphonies, the American Guild of Organists, Sonoma City Opera and the Gerbode Foundation. Conte has composed five operas: The Dreamers; The Gift of the Magi; Firebird Motel; and America Tropical; (these last two commissioned by San Francisco theater company Thick Description, for whom Conte has been Composer-In-Residence since 1991); and Famous, based on the book "Famous for 15 Minutes - My Years with Andy Warhol" by Ultra Violet. He is also the composer of a musical, The Passion of Rita St. James, produced at the SF Conservatory in 2003. The Gift of the Magi has been produced by the Asheville Lyric Opera, Winnipeg Opera, Muddy River Opera Company, Greenburg American Opera, and Opera South. He has also composed songs for singers Barbara Bonney, Thomas Hampson and Phyllis Bryn-Julson. His work is represented on many commercial CD recordings. A Fulbright Scholar in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, a Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellow and an Aspen Music Festival Conducting Fellow, Conte earned his Bachelors degree from Bowling Green State University, where he studied with Ruth Inglefield and Wallace DePue, and his Masters and Doctoral degrees from Cornell University where he studied with Karel Husa, Robert Palmer, Steven Stucky and Thomas Sokol. In 1982, Conte worked with Aaron Copland preparing a study of the composers sketches. He has taught at Cornell University, Keuka College, Colgate University and Interlochen. With composer Todd Boekelheide, Conte co-wrote the film score for the documentary Ballets Russes, shown at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals in 2005, (now available on DVD), and composed the music for the PBS documentary, Orozco: Man of Fire in 2006, shown on the American Masters Series in the fall of 2007. His composition The Nine Muses was commissioned by the American Choral Director's Association for their National Convention and was premiered on March 8th, 2007, in Miami.
Website:
http://www.davidconte.net
Shawn Crouch
 Anthony Tomissini of the New York Times has described Shawn Crouch’s work as music of “gnarling
atonal energy”, and Lawrence Johnson of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel called his Road From
Hiroshima; A Requiem a “staggering achievement, an imaginative, powerful and deeply moving work”
making the the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel’s 2005 Classical Music Standouts. Shawn has received
awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, Yale University, and the
Percussive Arts Society. In 2006 his Road From Hiroshima; A Requiem was nominated for the Pulitzer
Prize in Composition. Shawn Crouch, composer, conductor, educator, has had his works performed
by the Eighth Blackbird Ensemble, the Non Sequitur Ensemble, The Del Sol String Quartet, Prism
Saxophone Quartet, Seraphic Fire Choir and Orchestra, and the Yesaroun’ Duo. He has worked in
collaboration with dance choreographers Susan Dodge, Jeffrey Smith, and Cynthia Stephens, as well
as in collaboration with theater director Tina Packer and Shakespeare and Company.
As a conductor, Mr. Crouch has lead such ensembles as the Yale Pro Musica, The Elm City Girls
Choir, the Walden School Festival Chorus, the United Girls Choir, and the Hunter College Campus
School Concert Choir.
In June 2000, Mr. Crouch completed a two-year internship with New England Conservatory’s
Learning Through Music program where he conducted portfolio research and assessment under the
direction of Lyle Davidson and Dr. Larry Scripp. His article “Learning Through Music Portfolios in
Elementary Education” was published by the Journal for Learning Through Music.
Shawn Crouch has studied composition with Martin Bresnick, Ezra Laderman and Malcolm Peyton
and conducting with Marguerite Brooks. He has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and
the Norfolk Music Festival where he studied with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi and Augusta
Read Thomas. He has attended the Berklee College of Music and The Peabody Preparatory studying
classical/jazz piano, composition and horn. Mr. Crouch received his B.M. in composition from the
New England Conservatory with honors and distinction in performance, and his M.M. in
composition from the Yale School of Music. Shawn Crouch currently serves on the faculty at
Hunter College Campus School in New York City, as well as the Walden School in Dublin, New
Hampshire. His percussion music is published by Honey Rock Publication.
Website:
http://shawncrouchmusic.com
Tarik O'Regan
 Born in London in 1978, two-time British Composer Award winner Tarik O'Regan was educated at Oxford University, completing his postgraduate studies at Cambridge. Described as exquisite and delicate (The Washington Post) with a gritty freshness unlike that of anyone else (The Independent, London), his compositions have been performed internationally by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Los Angeles Master Chorale.
O'Regan divides his time between New York City and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts. Previously he has held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship in Music Composition at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard. O'Regan is currently working on an operatic version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in collaboration with the artist Tom Phillips, which is in development with American Opera Projects in New York and OperaGenesis at the Royal Opera House, London.
His 2006 debut disc, VOICES, described as beautifully fresh and refined (The Telegraph, London), was released to wide critical acclaim, heralding O'Regan as one of the most original and eloquent of young British composers (The Observer, London). His music has been recorded on the Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, Avie, Collegium and Metier labels; it is published exclusively by Novello & Company Ltd.
Website:
http://www.tarikoregan.com
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