I Attended This Show! What A Great Night!

Yale Symphony Orchestra and 'Video Games Live' bring gamer music to life Saturday
By Donna Doherty, Register Arts Editor
03/25/2007

NEW HAVEN — Some people hear Rossini's "William Tell Overture," and immediately think of television's "The Lone Ranger." Fast forward a couple of generations, and today's ears hear a few bars of Tommy Tallarico's or Jack Wall's songs and immediately know which video game they're linked to.
Saturday at Woolsey Hall, the Yale Symphony Orchestra will become the first college musicians to be a part of Tallarico and Wall's franchise "Video Games Live," when they present not only a live concert of video-game scores at 8 p.m., but also host a multi-media pre-show festival at 6 p.m. in the Woolsey Rotunda, featuring an arcade of more than 20 games, interactive game demos, a costume contest, game competitions and a chance to see games that aren't on the market yet.

As Brian Robinson, the symphony's managing director, puts it, "When you walk in, you will not recognize Woolsey Hall. You'll see lighting trusses, giant screens, extended stage and extended screen. As far as special effects, it will be something Woolsey has not had in a long time."What John Williams is to movie scores, Tallarico is to video-game scores — legendary. In nearly two decades, he's scored more than 300 titles, including "Pac-Man," "Madden Football" and "Advent Rising," which one gamer magazine review called "one of the greatest music scores of all time." Wall has produced such names as Patti Smith, David Byrne and John Cale as well as the film soundtracks for "Basquiat," "Somewhere in the City," "Rhinoceros Hunting in Budapest" and "House of America," and composed gamer scores for the Mystic series, "Mark of The Kri," "Rise of the Kasai," among dozens of others. The California-based duo, who are basically the franchise of video-game music composers, formed Mystical Stone Entertainment to provide what they call an "immersive audio and video concert experience celebrating video games" — hence, "Video Games Live."Saturday's music will be from their most popular titles: "Mario," "Zelda," "Metal Gear Solid," "Tron," and retro classics such as "Frogger," "Space Invaders," "Tetris." As the video games are playing, the orchestra will be playing its music live. There will accompany fantasy vignettes, and from time to time, people will be pulled from the audience to play "Frogger" or "Space Invaders.""The closest thing I'd compare it to is movie soundtracks," says Robinson of the music, adding, "There is a whole cult music thing happening now where high school garage bands are playing only video-game music."Robinson agreed that some of the pre-concert festival may seem like the equivalent of a Trekkie convention, with gamer fanatics eager to compete in both games and the costume competition, but he notes, "It's a multi-billion dollar industry. It's amazing how widely spanned the video-game audience is. They're getting people literally of all ages playing these games. The stigma for video games being for nerdy types has gone away."The event came about when symphony administrators and first-year Music Director Toshiyuki Shimatas put their heads together to come with a symphony fund-raiser that also offered an opportunity to do something more accessible to younger audiences."We're both familiar enough with the orchestral world to know the pops medium is changing," says Robinson. "... As early as last year we were thinking of video games as a genre to do a concert with."After a little research, they came across "Video Games Live."VGL has been a phenomenal smash, selling out around the world since its launch on July 6, 2005, at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With 11,000 people in attendance, it was the largest video game concert in the world.Every year, it seems, they hit more "firsts" — first in Canada in 2005, first in South America in 2006, and now, Yale."This is a particularly unique for VGL, because it's the first university orchestra that's taken on this production," says Robinson. Once they booked VGL, they worked with Tallarico and Wall to plan what music would be performed, and marketed it to the local youth and college market. The company will arrive in town Thursday to set up and rehearse with the orchestra, whose musicians have been learning their respective parts for the past few months, from, what else — downloaded pdf files.Robinson won't reveal what games will be screened for the concert "because that's kind of the fun," but predicted, "I think you will have 2,400 kids absorbing the sound. It will sound more like a Beatles concert than a classical concert."He emphasized that this is a family-friendly affair. "You'll notice that 'Grand Theft Auto' is not on the program, but other games like 'Halo' that has shooting are, but it's been edited out."While the orchestra hopes to make at least as much as the $20,000 it netted from its Halloween show, which funds concert tours for the 50-member undergraduate group, Robinson points out another benefit that might accrue."Our theory right now is there are composers in the industry who have been successful who are going to look forward to come to Yale and sign some composers, because you're looking at the people who may one day be the composers."