~wesa~

On Saturday, Assistant Conductor Joseph Crnko lead the Seattle Symphony through 17 songs from a variety of video games at Benaroya Hall. A friend and I decided to take our men-folk to the show as a surprise. This was the second showing of PLAY! that the Seattle Symphony performed, as the first show on the previous Thursday had quickly sold out.

Video game music has been increasingly popular over the last few years. On August 20, 2003, music written for video games was performed for the first time outside of Japan by a live orchestra-the Czech National Symphony Orchestra-in a Symphonic Game Music concert. Under the direction of Maestro Andy Brick (Associate Conductor of PLAY!), the concert at the famous Gewandhaus zu Leipzig received a great deal of praise and enthusiasm. The first stateside concert, Dear Friends-Music from FINAL FANTASY, produced by Jason Michael Paul, was held in May 2004 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and sold out in three days. It featured music from Square Enix’s world-renowned FINAL FANTASY video game series, performed by the acclaimed Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The positive reception of this performance gave rise to the U.S. concert series beginning in 2005, under the direction of Maestro Arnie Roth. The performance of Dear Friends-Music from FINAL FANTASY by the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra and CPO Festival Choir, conducted by Arnie Roth in February 2005, was completely sold out, with more than 4,250 in attendance. now, Jason Michael Paul is teaming up with Arnie Roth and Andy Brick for this all-new concert series: PLAY! A Video Game Symphony. (Quote from the Seattle Symphony show program.)

The crowd that came for the Saturday matinee was an eclectic mix of adults, young adults, and children… dressed to the nines or in jeans and t-shirts. I saw one young man in a nice suit with sneakers, blending the best of both worlds.

During the concert, the 3 screens positioned above the orchestra displayed scenes from most of the video games and close-ups of the orchestra and choir. Some of the video game graphics did not enlarge that well, and others were missing completely. It appears that Square Enix (Final Fantasy series) did not grant permission for the use of their graphics. That was a bit of a letdown, but the others more than made up for it. It was amusing to see gameplay from the original Zelda and the beautiful opening sequences to Shenmue was captivating. The definite favorites: music and graphics from the Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog series. Both received a lot of applause, hoots, and cheering from the audience.

In the audience was Jeremy Soule, composer of the music from Oblivion and Guild Wars, and Martin O’Donnell, composer of the music from Halo.

This was a great way to introduce many people to the idea of going to the symphony. If the Seattle Symphony decided to perform PLAY! again, we will definitely be in the audience.

The line-up:

• Nobuo Uematsu: PLAY! Opening Fanfare
• Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix: Final Fantasy VIII-Liberi Fatali
• Koji Kondo/Nintendo: Super Mario Bros.
• Takenobu Mitsuyoshi/SEGA: Shenmue
• Joel Eriksson/Electronic Arts: Battlefield 1942
• Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix: Final Fantasy VII-Aerith’s Theme
• Masato Nakamura/SEGA: Sonic the Hedgehog
• Tappy Iwase/Konami: Metal Gear Solid
• Hikaru Utada/Disney/Square Enix: Kingdom of Hearts
• Jeremy Soule/Bethasoft/UbiSoft: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Yasunori Mitsuda/Square Enix: Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross
• Jason Hayes/Blizzard: World of Warcraft
• Akira Yamaoka/Konami: Silent Hill 2
• Martin O’Donnell/Microsoft: Halo
• Koji Kondo/Nintendo: The Legend of Zelda
• Jeremy Soule: Guild Wars Suite (Premiere)
• Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix: Final Fantasy VII-One Winged Angel

Write-ups in the media:
Seattle Times