Conservatory faculty member Mason Bates' new orchestral work, Auditorium, received its world premiere by the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, on April 27, the first major symphony orchestra to showcase the premiere of a new piece using Facebook Live. The live streaming functionality allowed the Symphony to connect with thousands of "concert-goers", dramatically expanding its audience and attracting viewers from around the world.

A unique aspect of Bates' Auditorium is its appeal to the past — in this case, the Baroque. Working with SFCM's Baroque Ensemble, Bates explores period instruments through the conduit of contemporary musical techniques, sampling recordings he made with Baroque Ensemble specifically for this work. "Auditorium begins with the premise that an orchestra, like a person, can be possessed," Bates says in program notes provided to the San Francisco Symphony. "The work haunts the San Francisco Symphony with ghostly processed recordings of [SFCM's] Baroque ensemble, with the electronic part comprised entirely of original neo-Baroque music...Essentially it is a work for two orchestras — one live, one dead … The dark ‘techno bourrée' that ensues is an exploration of dance music across the centuries, culminating in an ethereal finale that brings the two ensembles — like two kindred spirits — into resolution."

"One of the things that was really exciting was the collaboration," says Corey Jamason, co-chair of the Baroque Ensemble at SFCM. "It was fantastic for the students playing their Baroque instruments to feel the relevancy and newness of them in the performance of new music. I thought [Auditorium] was exciting and rhythmic, incredibly clever, and to be a part of something that's so new, so now, and so original… To be a part of that as a Baroque player is rather unexpected and rather marvelous."