The Game On! concert is a solid celebration of video game music

There’s nothing quite like an orchestra. Being surrounded by a crowd of similarly impassioned people as you take in a grand performance from a talented group of musicians is truly awesome.

And what I particularly love about the orchestra is that it can be so many different things. There’s the more traditional, like Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, to something more pop-culture-focused, where an orchestra performs the music live as you watch a movie. Over the past few months, I’ve particularly enjoyed the latter, getting to watch films like the original Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to the tune of the wonderful Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO).

But it was my latest TSO show that was most relevant to my interests. On May 25th and 26th, conductor Andy Brick led the TSO through a highly enjoyable two-hour show featuring symphonic soundtrack music from a variety of video games. In total, over a dozen songs were picked from the likes of World of Warcraft (Jason Hayes et al), The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Marcin Przybyłowicz and Mikołaj Stroiński), Destiny 2 (Michael Salvatori et al), BioShock (Garry Schyman) and Ori and the Blind Forest (Gareth Coker).

Accompanying these performances was an HD screen featuring footage from each game. Not every video game concert does this, and while that enhances the atmosphere in some cases, I do generally prefer to have the accompanying b-roll, especially to better expose me to titles I’m not as familiar with, like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2. 

That said, there were some odd choices about the kinds of footage that was shown; some titles, like The Witcher 3 (one of my all-time favourite games), had in-game scenes stitched together to tell more of a story, while others, like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Brian Tyler), was purely just cinematic trailers. The gaming industry is already routinely criticized for relying on CG instead of actual gameplay, and it felt especially odd to go that route for titles that have been out for years.

On the flip side, Brick, who commendably brought the first symphonic video game concert to the west, made for a likable MC. In between conducting each stretch of performances, he would provide little synopses of each game, which was especially nice for the parents, partners and other casual attendees who no doubt accompanied some of the more hardcore gamers in the audience.

I also appreciated that Brick, likely drawing from his extensive history conducting video game orchestras, gathered a solid assortment of titles. Titles like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars provide the more traditional orchestral scores, while The Witcher 3 offers more Slavic-inspired tunes and Black Flag gave us a small troupe of enthusiastic singers to perform a pirate shanty. Even more inspired was the full “Cohen’s Masterpiece” piano solo from BioShock (which, as Brick noted, is never actually completed in-game) and a thoughtful translation of Portal 2‘s chiptune-sounding beats into a proper symphonic medley.

I will say, however, that there were no songs from Japanese games. Given that Japan’s contributions to the medium are so massive, the complete lack of music from any of the country’s games is felt throughout. I suspect licencing would have been tricky for some of the bigger titles, especially for the likes of Final Fantasy and Sonic the Hedgehog, which already have their own concerts, but it’s still disappointing that not even one Japanese game was featured.

The structure of the show was a bit odd, as well. Originally, it was to end on Jeremy Soule’s main theme from Skyrim, a majestic and thrilling piece that would be a perfect way to bring it all home. (They even brought out a full choir and it was simply amazing.) However, some encores led to us concluding on a decidedly somber and low-energy Destiny 2 piece. Even if I cared for this game (and I really don’t), I still would have preferred a grand finale akin to the Skyrim performance.

On the whole, though, Brick and the TSO put on a thoroughly entertaining show that featured an eclectic mix of games and corresponding types of music. We often don’t get a lot of video game events of any kind in Canada, so it’s great to see a quality show like Game On! make its way here. Here’s hoping we get an encore show that brings an even wider assortment of incredible video game music down the line.

The next Canadian Game On! performance will take place next June in Vancouver.

Body image credit: Andy Brick Music LLC.