Introduction

I am really excited to be conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in this concert. I’ve listened to recordings of this orchestra since I was a kid and especially followed the orchestra when I was a student and Sir Simon Rattle was conducting them. I’m delighted to be working with the orchestra for the first time today, presenting a programme of video game music!

Listening to orchestras when I was a little kid was what made me want to become a composer. I love the sonority of big orchestral colour. Through writing and performing video game music, I want to share the incredible feeling of hearing brilliant orchestral artistry live with members of the general public, particularly those who may never have experienced it before. The colours of the orchestra have become such a big part of the video game music community’s culture and it brings me so much joy to be able to bring it to life for you.

Even if you’ve never heard a note of video game music before, I can guarantee you’ll have a great time. It’s very dramatic music, taken from the classical ideas of programme music, wherein the music is written to describe a scene, set a tone, describe an emotion or paint a picture. A lot of video game music is also through-composed as we don’t need to factor cuts and edits in the way we might need to for film scoring – the music instead can be really expressive and flow however we want.

A lot of the music in this concert is written by British video game composers. We all know each other well, in fact Grant Kirkhope (who composed Mario Rabbids) is my neighbour in Los Angeles! I’ll be performing some of my own music in this concert too from World of Warcrafts and Bloodlines Masquerade 2, which has only just been released so I’m really excited to play you this soundtrack.

When you score for a film, you’re scoring for the character being portrayed on the screen but when you’re scoring for a video game, you’re scoring the adventure of the player themselves - the composer is scoring your adventure as the main character. So, I invite you to imagine your own quest as you listen to the music in tonight’s concert. Without the visuals, experience how the composer may decide what the character might do, the twists and turns, the highs and lows, the excitement and the repose.

Go inside your own imagination, follow the colours and see what the music draws. Immerse yourself in a complete fantasy world - it’s going to be a fun concert.

Eímear Noone
Conductor