The London Philharmonic Orchestra Gets It

Last Friday, a wonderful thing happened in a time zone far, far away (from me). The London Philharmonic Orchestra just put on a concert of music from video games!

I heard about the show with the aid of my Google Alerts a couple of days before it happened and, as exciting as it sounded, it was also very sad for me because it was in London. Living 8 timezones away makes it a bit difficult for me to get over there on short notice. However, they are going to be releasing an album later this year. 🙂

Back to the concert… With an incredibly huge and diverse set list, this show was put on as part of the Vision Sound Music festival in London. It’s difficult to appreciate the magnitude of the concert without seeing its massive set list in writing:

Advent Rising: Muse Tommy Tallarico
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Jeremy Soule
Call of Duty: Main Menu Theme Stephen Barton & Harry Gregson-Williams
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: Theme Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe
Legend of Zelda Koji Kondo
Super Mario Bros. Theme Mahito Yokota & Koji Kondo
Little Big Planet: Orb of Dreamers: The Cosmic Imagisphere Daniel Pemberton
Splinter Cell: Conviction Michael Nielsen, Kaveh Cohen, Amon Tobin
Battlefield 2: Theme Joel Eriksson
Final Fantasy: Theme Nobuo Uematsu

Interval

Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty Theme Harry Gregson-Williams
Dead Space: Welcome Aboard the U.S.G. Ishimura* Jason Graves
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Greg Edmonson
World of Warcraft: Seasons of War Jason Hayes
Halo 3: One Final Effort Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori
007: Blood Stone: Athens Harbour Chase* Richard Jacques
Bioshock: The Ocean on his Shoulders Garry Schyman
Mass Effect: Suicide Mission Jack Wall & Sam Hulick
Fallout 3: Theme Inon Zur
Tetris Alexey Pajitnov
Super Mario Bros. Gusty Garden Galaxy Koji Kondo
Final Fantasy: Liberi Fatali Nobuo Uematsu
Angry Birds Ari Pulkkinen
Enemy Zero: Last Movement Michael Nyman

I found this list on the blog for this particular concert. You can also find several really interesting blog entries about the creation and lead-up to both the recording and concert written by Andrew Skeet, the conductor. They’re fairly lighthearted and make for a really fascinating read that actually give you some insights into the details of putting something like this together. Here’s a quick sample for you:

So… Super Mario Bros theme goes beautifully into Orb of Dreamers from Little Big Planet – but is that too much cheese in one go? Nah – cheese is good but we should probably follow it up with something serious… like Legend of Zelda!!! I’m losing some perspective here I think…

In conclusion, go sign up on their site to receive updates for their album release–I’ve already done so. 🙂

P.S. If you do some YouTube searching, you might find some videos of the concert (assuming they aren’t taken down).