Video game music has come a long way since Pong and Donkey Kong were all the rage. Now concerts based around popular franchise aren’t just commonplace – they’re mega hits. Case in point, back in 2017 Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy managed to actually sell out Sydney’s ICC Theatre.
This time, however, it’s Victoria’s turn, with a one-off show planned for Melbourne Arena on Saturday August 24. It will be the concert’s premiere performance in the state, and won’t just feature music from the incredibly popular RPG, but include a special tribute to Final Fantasy VII as well as showcase guest performer Susan Calloway – the original vocalist of Final Fantasy XIV.
The 100-piece Distant World Philharmonic and Chorus will be led by non-other than international conductor, Arnie Roth, whose brain we had a chance to pick before the big day arrives. Now a mainstay for the travelling global show, Roth’s entry into this magical world actually happened slightly by chance.
“I was a music director and conductor of an orchestra in Chicago, which was kind of like a pops orchestra,” he retells.
“So as such you’re looking at programming and looking for new and interesting things all the time. Then a colleague of mine called my attention in 2004 to the fact that the Japanese had been doing video game concerts for many years since 1998/1999 without any video screen.
“Just concerts of the music of the Final Fantasy series for one. And he was mentioning that I should look into it. So I did some research, and decided we would take a chance and be the first public concert of the Final Fantasy series in North America.”
Want to know what you’re in for? Hear some of the franchise’s biggest hits!
“That took place in February of 2005, when I first met Nobuo Uematsu, and brought him in,” he added. “The thing sold out 4000 seats quickly, and kind of the rest is history.
“But that was how this started – it was just my thinking and looking outside of the box, if you will. You know, looking at what was happening around the rest of the world. And this seemed like, how is it possible that we’ve never done a video game music concert in North America?”
The runaway success was great for Roth and his team, but it naturally begged the question – what about the wider musical community? Did those from a more traditional musical background scoff at the notion of performing compositions from a video game?
According to Arnie, there was a bit of hesitancy about the Distant Worlds format, but it stemmed more from the fact that presenters of music, concerts or orchestras simply didn’t believe it was something you could sell tickets to.
“They thought it really could be maybe a special event, like at a convention or something like that,” he explains. “Like Comic-Con or whatever. They didn’t believe that it actually could be a concert event. That was one thing from a business standpoint. And then in terms of this business of looking down their nose, yes, there were some musicians that didn’t connect with that.
“These are generally all musicians who have never listened to the music of Nobuo Uematsu. They had never looked at these scores. They were only thinking about eight-bit bloops and bleeps, and pixelated animation, and Super Mario Brothers, thinking ‘how could that possibly be a concert?’
And, in fact, it’s the narrow kind of tunnel vision that that happens often with classical and conservatory training. They tend to focus just on a narrow band of repertoire. And more and more musicians around the world must broaden their horizons. They must be able to play in different genres, and accepting of that.
See the progress on the remake of Final Fantasy VII
“We find that much more open these days than the very first few years that we were trying to develop the concert series.”
The narrow-minded view isn’t entirely surprising for those well-versed in the video game community, but how do you go about trying to change that stance in the first place?
“Well, part of it is… a very simple thing when I actually get there, and start a rehearsal with them,” Roth breaks down. “Then they see how beautifully orchestrated the music is, and demanding, and how classically it’s been written.
“You know, Uematsu’s music is all about melody and structure. It’s not like some other composers where it’s kind of quasi a sound design thing. You know, in his case, it’s much more classically written, that’s partially a combination of the game being a role playing game.
“Every character has their own theme, every battle, every city or land, or journey, or romantic relationship. And so, when you do that, and players are ingrained, they’re playing as those characters after hundreds of thousands of hours, and then some of the characters come back later in the series. It’s really kind of a very personal relationship with that music.
“So getting back to the main question, it was really the, the forward thinking of one or two orchestra management people who said ‘you know what, we believe in this music, we’ve listened to it, we’re going to try it.’”
Roth himself has had quite a varied and incredibly successful career. The Grammy-winning artist has not just conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony, but worked with the likes of Il Divo, Diana Ross, Jewel and Andrea Bocelli.
So how hard is it to switch over to the likes of Final Fantasy? What kind of headspace do you need to enter for such an endeavour?
Nobu Uematsu explains his create genius
“I mean, Distant Worlds is one of the most demanding things that I do, from a technical standpoint because, and I have to underline this, we are totally live,” Roth admits.
“There’s no place to hide. We have to teach it to a new orchestra and choir in every city, and bring them up to speed very quickly. So, this is much more demanding than, let’s say, working with Jewel, or Diana Ross, or pop stars where there might be a band – kind of a nice blanket to fall back on.
“And then, on the other hand, it’s more similar to an Andre Bocelli concert, because it is all live. And, again, everything has to be created perfectly, for every concert that way. There are no pre-recorded tracks, there’s nothing to fall back on. That’s from a technical standpoint.
“From a musical standpoint, I have to bring my classical background to the music of Final Fantasy, because it’s classically written, and beautifully orchestrated. So, in terms of getting the phrasing and the articulation, and the ensemble playing up to a level that we expect, it takes classical training, and certainly those tools.
That said, we have many, many tracks, and scores that we play that require a background in jazz, a background in rock, a background in opera.
“And because, as you know, the music of Final Fantasy crosses all those genres, turning classical musicians into flexible cross-genre performers is more challenging than other times. Depends on the orchestra and how much of that they do. Sometimes it takes more rehearsing than other times to get it there. And I have to use kind of all of my tools in my tool kit to try to bring it up to speed very quickly.
As our chat drew to a close, it left one burning question to be asked. How do you get to the level of Arnie Roth?
“Practice, practice, practice” he laughs. “I mean there’s no shortcut for the repetition of this.”
Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy plays Melbourne Arena August 24, 2019. For tickets click here.
