I know that it makes me a world-class geek that I went to listen to the Minnesota Orchestra playing video game music, but in the long run, I'm pretty ok with it. I got Henry tickets for Christmas to this performance, since he's always raving about the music in his favorite video games and I've been wanting to go to the orchestra for awhile. Seemed like a win-win situation! And I have to say that I was impressed.
My sister told me that a lot of composers love playing video game music because they don't have to cater to students who aren't very good at music--they can write music specifically for professionals and make it as hard as they want. A lot of that came through--the music was HARD and very good. Some of the pieces were familiar...from old arcade games that I used to play on my computer to Mario. Others I had never heard, but they were impressively evocative and often really beautiful. The performance was a part of a tour from a few video games composers who are trying to show people that even though they may not take video games seriously, they shouldn't discount the music and art involved as juvenile. For all that, it was still definitely a pops concert--every so often a costumed character would show up, and there were always video game images playing in the background. A few times, members of the audience participated in the show by playing a game while the orchestra played.
All in all, I'm glad I went. Geeky or not, it was a fun night and I heard a lot of great music.
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