“Millions of people are listening to hours of contemporary classical music every week, and they might not even know it. They do it while they play video games,” writes Caroline Crampton in Monday’s (11/6) New Statesman (London, U.K.). “Just as Hollywood film studio executives turned to established composers like Aaron Copland and Dmitri Shostakovich in the early twentieth century, today’s games designers are using the best composition talent to augment the experience of playing their titles.… Hans Zimmer, who wrote the music for Gladiator and Dunkirk, also works for games like Modern Warfare, for instance. The best games music stays with you long after you finish playing…. Increasingly, video game music has been recognised as a major cultural product…. Classic FM now routinely plays video game music as part of its general playlist…. In the U.S., the interview-focused podcast Level does something similar, with host Emily Reese interviewing games music composers about their work and inspiration.… Games music is as diverse, innovative and exciting as the composers who write it, and the games industry … have a vast global audience listening to their music.”
Posted November 7, 2017
