Game changer: the Commodore 64 concert

Video game music played by an orchestra is not new, but 8-Bit Symphony, a celebration of music from pioneering C64 composers, took many years of work

My grandfather, a lover of classical music, was president of the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra for many years. When I was 15, I played him an orchestrated version of Nobuo Uematsu’s To Zanarkand, from the video game Final Fantasy X. “This isn’t real music if it’s from a video game,” he told me at the time. I don’t think he could ever have imagined that 12 years later, the Hull orchestra to which he had devoted so many years would be performing music from 1980s video games, in front of a packed hall.

In the past, video game music concerts were a promotional novelty, but today they are regular and well-attended billings in venues across the world. From The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess to Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, Assassin’s Creed Symphony to the recent debut by the London Video Game Orchestra and even a performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra hosted by lauded composer Jessica Curry, fans are flocking to concert halls to hear their favourite video game melodies played live. For many, it is their first experience of live orchestral music.