A Night in Fantasia 2007 – Symphonic Games Edition this April
The Eminence Symphony Orchestra will be preforming their latest and newest concert this year in Melbourne and Sydney during April. The 60 piece Orchestra will be bringing to life classic musical scores including Super Mario Bros, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and much, much more.
Press Release and Dates Inside. A new breed of musicians is set to challenge the traditional boundaries of orchestral music let the games begin!
The Eminence Symphony Orchestra are again ready to challenge the traditional boundaries of orchestral music when they present their most impressive, blockbuster concert series to date – A Night in Fantasia 2007 – Symphonic Games Edition – in Sydney and Melbourne in April 2007.
The 60 piece Eminence Symphony Orchestra will effectively bring to life the musical scores from the latest and greatest computer games, including Super Mario Brothers, Kingdom Hearts series, Metal Gear Solid series, Final Fantasy series, World of Warcraft, Shadow of the Colossus, Tales of Legendia, Xenosaga, Chrono Cross, Soulcalibur series, Tekken series and many, many more.
Eminence Symphony Orchestra founder and renowned violin virtuoso, Hiroaki Yura commented, Eminence was founded to both challenge the often staid image of orchestral music and to find a way to make orchestral music appealing to a wider demographic. We want our music to literally touch a chord inside everyone in the audience and help them realise an appreciation for a genre of music they would otherwise not consider.
Today, the gaming industry is an enormous economic powerhouse which is worth an estimated $30 billion globally and employs hundreds of millions of people from developers and designers, to animators.and musical composers.
As Mr Yura noted, There would be nothing more boring than playing a video game be it for 5 minutes or 5 hours without something to listen to which complements the hand, eye and mind co-ordination required in game play and is able to help evoke the right emotions at the right times.
We are thrilled to have seven of the games industrys most renowned and awarded musical composers coming to Australia from Japan to attend our concerts. Their presence for the A Night in Fantasia 2007 Symphonic Games edition series is evidence of just how significant music is to the games industry, he added.
Composer Yoko Shimomura started piano lessons at five years of age and years later, graduated from the prestigious Osaka Music University. Soon after, she shocked her family and professors when she decided to indulge her passion for video games and began composing music for one the leading video game manufacturers in the industry. Today, Shimomura is a legend in an industry that captures the imagination and minds of millions of people around the world every day.
Shimomura has said that the process of writing music is a labour of love and that games inspire her more than anything else in her life. Part of her ritual when composing involves playing the video game repeatedly and then recording the gameplay in order to capture the full range of emotions that the player experiences while playing.
Yasunori Mitsuda also took piano lessons as a boy, but it was his passion for computers that captured his imagination and time – much to his tutors dismay. Years later and we hope to his tutors delight Mitsudas legendary work on Chrono Trigger is arguably the most recognised gaming musical score of all time and has been performed by Symphony orchestras around the world.
Hitoshi Sakimoto describes himself as having been a computer, games and music geek for as long as he can remember. As such, composing music for gaming allowed him to combine his greatest passions in an almost ethereal way. Sakimoto says that every time he completes a new piece of work he is still completely overawed by the capacity of games music to transcend language and cultural barriers.
Also attending the A Night in Fantasia 2007 Symphonic Games edition series will be Kow Otani, the composer of Shadow of the Colossus and Haibane Renmai; Shiro Hamaguchi, the orchestrator and arranger of the Final Fantasy series; Masaru Shiina, the composer of Tales of Legendia, Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Ace Combat 3; and Junichi Nakatsuru, the composer of Soul Calibur series and Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.
A Night in Fantasia concert-goers will have the unique opportunity to meet with these celebrity composers, as well as the chance to win great door prizes and purchase a wide range of Eminences merchandise.
The 60 piece Eminence Symphony Orchestra will be accompanied by a 30 piece choir and visually supported by live footage and memorable moments from some of the most popular videogames which will be projected onto a giant screen.
A Night in Fantasia 2007 Symphonic Games edition promises to be a true game play for the sensestransport yourself to another world!
Concert details:
Sydney Melbourne
Dates: Friday 20 & Saturday 21 April Date: Friday 27 April
Time: 7.30pm Time: 7.30pm
Venue: The Sydney Town Hall Venue: Hamer Hall, The Arts Centre
Bookings: via Books Kinokuniya Bookings: via Ticketmaster www.ticketmaster.com.au
Ticket prices: Concession Adult
A Reserve $60.00 $70.00
B Reserve $50.00 $60.00
C Reserve $30.00 $40.00
*plus booking fee and other charges as applicable
Visit www.eminenceonline.com for more information.
For media information, please contact:
Kerryn Nelson
Big Mouth Marketing Communications
p: 03 9584 8134 / + 61 (0) 417 035 536
e: kerryn.nelson@bigmouth.net.au
About Eminence Symphony Orchestra
Eminence Symphony Orchestra was established in 2003 by renowned violin virtuoso, Hiroaki Yura. Since then, Eminence has become known for their annual A Night in Fantasia events, in addition to other concerts and recordings for games, anime and films.
Eminence Symphony Orchestra comprises 60 elite musicians under the conductorship of Philip Chu. Eminences team of musicians have had experience with a large number of established Symphony Orchestras, such as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Queensland Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
Many Eminence musicians have also performed as international soloists with major orchestras around the world, including the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, all major Chinese Eastern Coast Orchestras, all major Australian Orchestras and major USA Orchestras.
Eminence aims to revitalise the current state of Australian orchestras and achieve a following across all demographics, encouraging a wider appreciation of symphonic music in Australia. Eminence is the most experienced orchestra in the world dedicated to gaming and anime music.
The Eminence Symphony Orchestra will present another concert series, focusing solely on anime music, later in the year.
