Symphonic Legends – Music from Nintendo
 |
|
| Orchestra | WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln |
|---|---|
| Choir | State Choir Latvija |
| Conductor | Niklas Willén |
| Composers | Jonne Valtonen, Koji Kondo, Hajime Hirasawa, Yumiko Kanki, Naoto Ishida, Kenji Yamamoto, Minako Hamano, David Wise, Hajime Wakai |
| Arrangers | Jonne Valtonen, Roger Wanamo, Masashi Hamauzu, Shiro Hamaguchi, Hayato Matsuo, Torsten Rasch |
| Venue | Cologne (Germany), Cologne Philharmonic Hall |
| Date(s) | 23 September 2010 |
| Supporting acts | Benyamin Nuss, Rony Barrak |
| Producer | Thomas Böcker (Merregnon Studios) |
| Böcker concert chronology | |
Symphonic Legends – Music from Nintendo was a symphonic tribute concert held in Cologne, Germany on 23 September 2010 by the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, featuring video game music from Japanese game developer Nintendo. The concert featured symphonic arrangements found in some of Nintendo's biggest game series, such as Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Pikmin, F-Zero and Donkey Kong. The concert was produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composers and musicians Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo, as well as Japanese game music composers Masashi Hamauzu, Hayato Matsuo, Shiro Hamaguchi and German film composer Torsten Rasch.
Like the previous concerts performed by the WDR, Symphonic Legends was broadcast over radio, now in 5.1 surround sound, on the WDR4 station and was also broadcast online via live video streaming.
After the continued success of Symphonic Fantasies, Merregnon Studios and the WDR ambitiously announced their plans to follow up and work together once again on a new concert. On 17 December 2009, it was announced that another concert would take place in 2010 on Symphonic Fantasies website. No theme was announced for the concert until March 2010, when Winfried Fechner announced that the theme would exclusively focus on the Japanese game developer Nintendo. Thomas Böcker further added soon thereafter that the concert was to take concept he had built the previous shows on even further, and experiment extensively to push the perception of video game music arrangement more than ever before.
Symphonic Legends was said to present many innovations to orchestral video game performances due to this approach. Böcker requested that arrangers would need total freedom with their work, which Nintendo permitted. The concert was to be structured in a way that each game’s story was told, rather than just themes being performed and pieces placed in an order to maximize their impact. Thorsten Rasch was brought in to provide an arrangement for Super Metroid done in a dark, contemporary style as opposed to the more classically textured arrangement during past shows. Masashi Hamauzu commented that he had total freedom to arrange "Aquatic Ambiance" from Donkey Kong Country, and therefore could put all his skills into the arrangement.
...
Wikipedia