Vancouver show hopes to bridge the worlds of symphony and video games

An upcoming Vancouver concert will feature a symphony orchestra performing music from some of the world's most popular video games — and the orchestra's conductor wants to make new fans of symphonic music in the process.

Game On! will see the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra take on music from megahit games like The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Civilization, Assassin's Creed and more at the Orpheum Theatre on June 11.

Conductor Andy Brick says that back when he first started working with symphony orchestras to perform music from video games in 2003, the idea was a novelty.

Brick says he was the first to conduct such a concert in the West, with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig, Germany — and admits many of his musicians, at first, expressed skepticism over being asked to play music from video games.

"The minute we started — you know, the hall is sold out, was packed — the audience went crazy. It was almost like being at a rock concert," he told CBC News.

"I think that's one of the really special things about video games, is that the audience connection to the music is quite different than what I think orchestras typically experience with their audiences."

Brick says he hopes his Vancouver show can serve as a bridge to the world of symphonic music, especially for younger people.

The composer also hopes to convince regular symphony listeners of the value of video game music, which one academic says has deep emotional resonance for gamers.

"You're connecting to the music on the musical level, but you're also connecting to it on a physical, interactive level," Brick said.

"When you get into the concert hall, when you hear this music, you're having a connection not just with the music, but you're having this visceral connection again," he added. "So I think there's a lot of physicality."

'Powerful resonance'

Composer, percussionist and music educator Aidan Gold has written about how classical musicians respond to each other and improvise — likening it to a quasi-theatrical experience or even playing a game together.

The composer from Seattle said that playing video games is often a long-form experience that's deeply personal, where a player engages with a game that responds to them in turn.

"As a result, you can sort of connect very deeply with certain aspects of it, including the music, which ... forms, like, a powerful resonance" he said.

"Then, whenever you hear it, especially in a new venue like the concert hall, that can often provoke a very communal reaction because you're connecting with all of these other people who may also have had that experience."

Brick says audiences for his video-game-based symphony orchestra performances have tended to skew younger than usual — and as video games mature as a medium, the audience has grown up with them.

He says condensing video game music into a symphonic performance can be challenging, given how music within games changes dynamically in response to the player, and composers often have to create a suite of tracks that evokes a particular game.

"It's a music which ... speaks more to the atmosphere and the emotional content of the game than it does to a specific storyline," he said. "Because the specific storyline can change."

Brick says he wants to convince regular symphony listeners of the value of video game music, especially given that many video game composers are classically trained.

It's a feeling Gold shares, saying that having a symphony orchestra perform video game music has the potential to appeal to both new and old fans of symphonic music.

"People who don't think so much about video games, or interactive structures, might see these concepts of video game music and be inspired to think more about like, 'OK, how is music like a game? How ... do these communal experiences work?'" Gold said.

"They might have their eyes open to this whole new artistic medium because of that."