PLAY! A Video Game Symphony

Saturday, September 30, 2006
PLAY! A Video Game Symphony: A Report.

Having bought tickets for this concert months ago, I was regrettably unable to attend the Concordia Fine Arts Art Crawl. In substitution, I choose to write a report instead on my experience at the symphony. Fellow classmate Samuel Bellemare also attended the show. See his Blog report for more information.

It was a cold and rainy night in Toronto, making the six city block walk down to the Hummingbird center in high heels quite the feat. However, it was all worth it in the end as the lights dimmed down and the concert began, beginning with an introduction to the special guests of the evening. Composer from all over the world (mainly Japan and the United States) gathered to watch the fruits of their labor performed by a sixty piece orchestra and choir all conducted by the Grammy-Award winning artist Arnie Roth.
The guests included Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (composer of the Shenmue series from Nintendo) who also delighted the audience with a surprise performance of ‘Daytona, USA’ on piano, Jason Hyes (composer of the World of Warcraft main themes), Jeremy Soule (the winner of the newly instated MTV Video Music award for Best Video Game Score for his work in the Elder Scrolls series), and, finally, one of my favorite and most famous composers of video game music for his work with in the FINAL FANTASY series, Nobuo Uematsu.
For those who are interested, the play list was as follows:

1. :: PLAY! A VIDEO GAME SYMPHONY :: Fanfare :: Nobuo Uematsu
2. :: FINAL FANTASY VIII :: Liberi Fatali :: Nobuo Uematsu
3. :: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS :: Suite :: Koji Kondo
4. :: SHENMUE AND SHENMUE II :: Sedge Tree :: Takenobu Mitsuyoshi
5. :: BLACK :: Suite :: Various
6. :: FINAL FANTASY VII :: Aerith’s Theme :: Nobuo Uematsu
7. :: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG :: Suite :: Masato Nakamura
8. :: METAL GEAR SOLID :: Main Theme :: Various
9. :: KINGDOM HEARTS :: Suite :: Hikaru Utada

Intermission

10. :: ELDER SCROLLS III: MORROWIND :: Suite :: Jeremy Soule
11. :: FINAL FANTASY SERIES :: Swing de Chocobo :: Nobuo Uematsu
12. :: CHRONO TRIGGER AND CHRONO CROSS :: Suite :: Yasunori Mitsuda
13. :: WORLD OF WARCRAFT :: Suite :: Jason Hayes
14. :: SILENT HILL 2 :: Theme of Laura :: Akira Yamaoka
15. :: HALO :: Suite :: Michael Salvatori
16. :: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA :: Suite :: Koji Kondo
17. :: FINAL FANTASY VII :: One-Winged Angel :: Nobuo Uematsu

Each piece was accompanied, usually, by in-game footage from each series. However, one discrepancy I noted that was speculated as a problem with acquiring legal rights, was that no supplemental video was shown during the many pieces from the Final Fantasy series. Though disappointing, this did not take away from the power of the music itself. Two pieces were especially powerful, the one from the opening ‘Liberi Fatali’ and the closing ‘One-Winged Angel’ due to their strong, distinct, Latin lyrics, allowing the choir to finally showcase their abilities.
Another extraordinary addition was the performances by guest percussionist Rony Barrack in those pieces that included an original Latin-American beat such as in the “Chrono Cross” Suite and the jungle war-themes from “Black”.
The selection of compositions was, of course, exquisite, the audience enthusiastic and aside from the lack of Final Fantasy supplemental video and a few technical difficulties, the orchestra performed flawlessly and the music I’ve grown to love was stimulating in a way only a live performance can deliver.
I will most definitely be going to another of these shows if I am lucky enough to have them performed again in Canada, and I encourage others to keep an eye open for tickets as well.