Tuesday (5/29) on the CBS News site, Whit Johnson writes, “A crowd of 1,100 recently gathered in this courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum to listen to a 123-piece orchestra. But it wasn’t the music of Beethoven or Strauss they heard. Instead, it was arrangements for video games like ‘Sonic the Hedgehog.’ It was all part of the largest dedication ever by a major museum to the art of video games. Joel Guttman, who plays trombone for the University of Maryland’s Gamer Symphony Orchestra, said, ‘Games are a real hybrid of different forms of art. You can have a beautiful game with a wonderful story, but if the soundtrack isn’t congruent with the game itself, then something’s just going to seem off.’ … For several years now, they’ve packed their campus concert hall with some of its biggest audiences. … The Gamer Symphony Orchestra’s success also represents an evolution in the very games they’re playing. It’s easy to see how animation has advanced over the years, but if you listen closely to the music, you’ll hear just how sophisticated the soundtrack has become.”
Posted May 30, 2012
