Shota Nakama (right) with minibosses Kian How (left) and Simon Lee (middle)
Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave.
Tonight at 8:15 pm, $10, all ages
Berklee's Video Game Orchestra, ninety students strong, performs music from a variety of game soundtracks, including pieces arranged by prominent game industry composers. (This evening, Mass Effect composer Jack Wall will guest-conduct one of his own works.) Bostonist caught up with VGO founder & megaboss Shota Nakama via email.
Bostonist: Is there a particular style of game music on which the concert focuses?
Shota Nakama: The concert is more focused on symphonic style, but occasionally we throw in a rock band, chamber group, singer, choir to make things more interesting.
"Snake Eater" from Metal Gear Solid 3, "Radical Dreamers" from Chrono Cross have a prominent solo vocal part. We have about 7-8 pieces that use the band: "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII, "Snake Eater," and "The End Begins" from God of War 2.
Bostonist: Which were the most challenging pieces to arrange for the orchestra?
Nakama: Definitely "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII because this piece requires the orchestra, the choir, and the band. It is longer & more complicated than the other pieces we are doing. I guess beyond those technical reasons, I spent more time on this because I just love the piece.
Bostonist: What was the first video game soundtrack that made you really take notice of video game music?
Nakama: I have been always fascinated by the music from the Dragon Quest series & Final Fantasy series, but Chrono Cross was probably the one that made me realize how far the video game music has gotten.
Bostonist: What is it about Nobuo Uematsu's music for Final Fantasy that really grabs you when you're 9 (and apparently doesn't let go)?
Nakama: Nobuo's music has always been very melodic and memorable, but not too complicated.
Bostonist: When Square Enix hired the LA Philharmonic to perform a game music recital a few years ago, there was criticism from the musicians involved and from contemporary composers (or at least Paul Moravec). What has the response been like from your musicians, peers, and others at Berklee and the Boston music community?
Nakama: That is an interesting question. Running VGO, I encounter that kind of situation myself. A lot of music purists—the ones who listen & praise only one kind of music—laugh at me doing this, they don't believe in the project, they think video game music is not music, and etc. However, it is usually because they do not have any idea of what the music is like, and they instantly connect the word "video game music" to the beepy, retro sound from Space Invader.
It takes a bit of convincing, but VGO has a lot of conservatory musicians who are loving the music. People have tendency to be a bit scared of new things—just like they thought Beethoven was crazy.
Bostonist: I think the original Metroid music is utterly defensible. Are you performing any adaptations of the "beepy" stuff?
Nakama: Not this time. We are thinking about incorporating it in the future.
Bostonist: Game music has become increasingly interactive, both in overtly music-oriented games (such as Harmonix's) and others (I'm thinking back to Rez, which was technically a shooter). How have new genres and audience expectations changed the work of game composers?
Nakama: I don't think the Harmonix games have affected the composers as much, but the advancement of the technology certainly did. Because of the audio engine, disc capacity, CPU speed, and etc, the composers are given much less technical limitations than the NES era.
Now the audience is used to listening good quality music and so are the developers—thus the composers have to be really talented in order to stand out from the others.
Bostonist: We've come a long way from the Final Fantasy VI opera house.
Photograph by Nick Balkin.
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