Move over Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Some orchestras are now devoting themselves exclusively to big names like Zelda, Mario and Sonic.
The Reno Video Game Symphony is passionate about video game music – so much so that the orchestra's volunteer members – all high school- and college-aged musicians – create their own orchestral, choral and jazz band arrangements of video game tunes and perform them year-round at venues all along the West Coast, according to Reno’s KOLO TV.
Although many American orchestras give concerts of video game music alongside their performances of standard classical repertoire, the Reno Video Game Symphony has found a fertile field exclusively in video game music.
The Reno orchestra isn't the only ensemble specializing in game music. Shota Nakama founded Boston’s Video Game Orchestra (VGO) in 2008 with the dream of "creating something ridiculously epi that blows people away." Since its official debut in 2011 at Boston’s Symphony Hall, the VGO has performed its "rockestral" arrangements of video game music internationally, including most recently on a tour of China, and has released a popular Kickstarter-funded CD recording, Video Game Orchestra Live at Symphony Hall.
Groups like Boston’s Video Game Orchestra and the Reno Video Game Symphony are giving video game music concerts an ongoing presence in their local communities. For the last decade, the video game industry itself has also been giving game music its own platform on international concert tours.
Video game music composer Tommy Tallarico, composer of music for Spiderman (2000), Unreal and Pac Man World among other game scores, created Video Games Live, a concert series that showcases game music. The Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the first performance on the series in 2005 at the Hollywood Bowl. The series now presents concerts around the world.
For more on video game music, listen to the podcast Unmute, produced by Classical 101 intern Margaret Fisher.
Read More:
- Local Symphony Takes on Video Game Genre (KOLO TV)
- Reno Video Game Symphony (RVGS)
- Video Game Orchestra (VGO)
- Video Games Live (VGL)
- Unmute (Classical 101)
