Video games in concert
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The music composed for video games has come a long way. Once limited to simple tunes generated by early synthesizer chips, it now encompasses complex musical works composed for full orchestra.
Video game music is now also considered a key access point to orchestral music among young people, and concert venues around the world are seeing new and diverse audiences attend live performances of gaming soundtracks.
Unsure at first, the classical music world is now embracing the genre - and for good reason. A study by League of of American Orchestras suggests audiences for concerts have dropped by 26% since 2020, with young people being the minority group of attendees.
In this episode, we'll hear about the origins of music written for video games; speaking to composers and orchestras who are embracing new audiences and exciting musical works. And we'll go backstage before opening night of a tour showcasing music from a major video game franchise.
(Image: Gaming Prom – From 8-Bit to Infinity, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, in the Royal Albert Hall, on 1 August 2022, as part of the BBC Proms.)
Presented and produced by Sean Allsop
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Big tour tomorrow. |
| 0:01.2 | Yeah, pick rehearsal early in the afternoon, then two shows. |
| 0:04.1 | Yeah, it's just, today has been the non-stop thing. |
| 0:09.2 | You know, we've been going two days. |
| 0:10.3 | The band has been practicing literally since a few hours after we land in. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm in London, where an orchestra has just arrived and is rehearsing for a world tour. |
| 0:21.0 | I'm trying to get ready for the guest artists, the composers coming in, getting, you know, everything set up. |
| 0:26.0 | It's not the music of Giacowski or Beethoven. |
| 0:29.8 | It's Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. |
| 0:32.1 | Music You realize that this is really not just a little, you know, press play, video game kind of thing. |
| 0:49.8 | It is a full concert event. |
| 0:52.2 | I mean, this is what what fans have been saying. They are very, very, very |
| 0:55.7 | much into and looking for, this completely immersive experience. |
| 1:06.7 | Sonic is one of the latest video game franchises to tour its music on stage. |
| 1:12.3 | And with more and more young people experiencing their first orchestral concert in this method, |
| 1:17.7 | are video game orchestras a new market for the classical world? |
| 1:21.6 | So this is great music and we want to be able to bring that to a wider public and onto the concert platform. |
| 1:28.0 | People want it. |
| 1:29.0 | And if people want it, then it is only right that cultural institutions reflect that change in society. |
| 1:35.8 | It's funny, I was even talking to somebody last night, |
| 1:38.0 | this new thing of these concerts, I'm like, well, actually, not anymore. |
| 1:43.7 | I'm Sean Orsop, and this week on Business Daily for the BBC World Service, it's all about gaming. |
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