Nick Balkin
By Meena Ramakrishnan
Instead of a traditional classical offering, the Video Game Orchestra (VGO) played popular video game theme tunes from Super Mario Brothers and Final Fantasy to a crowd of cheering video game fans. In VGO’s second concert at the Berklee Performance Center, they performed before a full house on Saturday, December 5, 2009.
The VGO was created in April 2008 by Producer and Music Director Shota Nakama, who encouraged the concert goers to cheer and make noise for the musicians. “This is not a typical classical concert. It’s a rock concert,” he told the audience. Unlike traditional orchestras, VGO has its own rock band that was used in some of the sets.
The orchestra is an ensemble of student musicians from Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory and local professional musicians. The VGO has played five concerts and received much acclaim, according to the press release. At their last performance at the 2009 Anime Boston Convention, they drew more than 5,000 listeners
The concert opened with the “Dragon Quest 4 Overture” and led into the “Super Mario Brothers Medley” that fans requested to be played at the concert. The audience swayed to plucked violin strings and a jazzy trombone. The orchestra’s rock band played riffs in songs like “Theme of Laura” from the video game “Silent Hill,” and the song “Snake Eater” from the game “Metal Gear Solid 3.” Violins furiously accompanied the electric guitar shredding. From the press release, Nakama said, “The music is epic—especially when fighting huge bosses!”
In the second set, the orchestra shrank to a quartet, and Nakama himself stepped in with an acoustic guitar to play “Unstolen Gem” from the game “Chrono Trigger.” The original version is with a guitar and a soloist. The third set featured special guest Conductor Wataru Hokoyama, who composed the complicated “AFRIKA” piece that the VGO requested to play. The orchestra returned with the Berklee Chamber Choir Club to play songs from “Video Games Live” and the suite from video game “Final Fantasy VII.”
Q & A with Producer and Music Director Shota Nakama
FN: How did VGO come about?
SN: Initially I made an orchestral arrangement a piece from a video game
and took it to some school orchestras in Boston to possibly perform it
or at least read it. They all refused to play it! So for my pure
love and passion for video game music, I decided to do it on my own.
FN: Since VGO started in 2008, how has it grown?
SN: It actually has grown to something I really did not imagine in the
beginning. We started with like 26-27 piece chamber orchestra and
performed in a small chapel. But thanks to all the staff & musicians
who have been involved in the project, we have been enjoying
consistent increase in the number of the audience per show. Now we
are able to pack a hall like Berklee Performance Center, and the
orchestra itself has about 90 members.
FN: What kind of audience do you have?
SN: We actually have a lot of different age groups coming to our shows.
Of course we do have a bigger proportion for younger people who grew
up playing games, yet we do have people who just like music in
general. It is really cool to have diversity in our show.
FN: How does VGO decide which music to play as an orchestra?
SN: I usually decide the music based on what direction I would like the
group to go to musically. The second factor is the requests I get
from all over the world on our website. I like featuring what people
would like to listen to, and it is always nice to play the music that
does not get performed very often.
FN: Which video games have inspired VGO?
SN: I must say the music from Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, and Afrika are
the ones really got me going with this. The music from those games
is just so amazing. This whole thing started because I like the
music from those and wanted to play them live anyway.
FN: Your orchestra is different from the traditional orchestra. How do
you incorporate instruments like the electric guitar into VGO?
SN: Yes we are actually very different from typical orchestras. We have a
chamber orchestra, a choir, and a rock band. That hugely increases
the musical flexibility of the group. We can do the symphonic style,
jazz/swing, rock/metal, and etc. I grew up listening to rock bands
like Deep Purple, Yngwie Malmsteen, Angra, and Stratovarius, so this
“a rock band with an orchestra” concept definitely comes from that. I
have always loved the sound of symphonic rock/neo classical metal, so
this idea to integrate a band came to me naturally.
FN: What kind of requests does VGO get from fans?
SN: We get a lot of requests to add more music from games like Grandia,
the Tales series, and many others, usually more band oriented
scores since we have a band.
FN: How was VGO’s last concert at Anime Boston?
SN: That was one amazing show. We had a lot of fun performing for a few
thousand people screaming! I would definitely love to do it again.
FN: Has VGO contributed to the video game industry’s popularity?
SN: I think so. One of our objectives is to gain more musical respect for
the industry so people don’t look down on the music part, and that of
course simultaneously helps promoting the games. I think we have been
doing a pretty good job for that especially among the students and the
people around the Boston area.
FN: What has it been like for VGO to collaborate with professional game
music composers?
SN: That actually gives benefits for both sides. We get to perform their
music with those guys present, which is a great experience for all the
players. Also we can promote and spread out how good the composers
are in the live concert setting rather than a game console playing
their music. All our guests have been extremely nice to us, and we
would like to continue featuring more people in the future.
FN: What music will you play in the next concert?
SN: This next concert will feature AFRIKA Suite composed by the guest
Wataru Hokoyama. It is an incredible piece that all of us have so
much fun playing. He will be guest conducting also! We will be
playing our well known repertoire like Metal Gear Solid as well as
newly arranged Final Fantasy VII Suite which features 10 pieces from
the game.
FN: What’s in store for VGO’s future?
SN: We will definitely try to bring much bigger concerts and expand
outside of Boston so we can provide such great music to more people.
We love doing this, and I would love to share our passion with more
people.
Meena Ramakrishnan is studying journalism at Northeastern.
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