“In an east London church … an orchestra stirs into action,” writes Arwa Haider in Thursday’s (9/26) Financial Times (U.K.). “This is the London Video Game Orchestra at play, rehearsing a piece by US composer Jason Graves from the sci-fi horror game Dead Space for a Halloween-themed concert…. Music from games has become a real-world attraction. You can hear major orchestras serenade Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot at the Hollywood Bowl and Royal Albert Hall…. The 65-piece LVGO was founded less than a year ago by Galen Woltkamp-Moon…. ‘Video game music has so many exciting themes and emotions,’ says Woltkamp-Moon….. Video game concerts also present the possibility of grand spectacle on a globalized scale, such as MGP Live’s tours of classic gaming soundtracks. Its current show [is] Assassin’s Creed Symphony…. The live trend has also brought international recognition to established game music composers such as … Koichi Sugiyama (who composed Dragon Quest’s ambitious mid-1980s score) and Yoko Shimomura (whose versatile, influential music has spanned Street Fighter II to the Kingdom Hearts and Mario & Luigi series). In the UK, Jessica Curry’s … exquisite ambient/choral scores for Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture are hailed as soundtrack benchmarks.”
Posted October 1, 2019
