Of video game music and concert attendance
A while back, Karsh brought up the ASO’s performace of Dear Friends: Music of Final Fantasy. I did not attend, but today we have Video Game blog Kotaku opining “Do Video Game Concerts Revive Concert Going?” and the AJC claiming “ASO lures younger audience with sounds of ‘Final Fantasy’”
I have three questions:
1) Did you attend the performance?
2) Did the inclusion of this type of concert make you more or less likely to attend future ASO performaces?
3) Did you make any musical or video game purchase based on this concert?
Maybe classical music lovers will listen to anything. Maybe this performance did bring in a new audience. Maybe it helped both the music-lovers and gamers. Only the comments will tell.
My personal opinion is that including “new classics” such as music from films and video games is a great way to de-mystify and popularize the traditionally stuffy realm of classical music. If it helps sell tickets, CDs or games it’s a good thing. Maybe I’ll catch the next performance. ;-)
I had to sell my tickets, but a friend of mine went and he said it was a great show. All the people I knew who wanted to go through already own almost all available titles based on the music. So I am sure the concert created awareness of the games music being so popular, and also awareness that the ASO is forward looking, but I doubt that #3 in relation to video games happened much afterwards. Now I know they released all the FF themes on iTunes a few weeks ago, would be neat to see if the popularity of the specific songs/albums in the Atlanta iTunes market/Amazon Market grew. At one point amazon would list certain subsets (based on geography/companies or somthing) that certain amazon items were popular in (ie This item is #24 in Atlanta buyers) I am not sure if that data is obtainable though.
The Dear Friends concert was absolutely awesome. There was even a hint from conductor Arnie Roth that the Black Mages may do a nationwide tour. Wouldn’t that be awesome? But to answer your questions:
1) Yes, I did attend.
2) I actually used to work for the WAC, so I got to see the ASO on a regular basis. I’m a big classical music fan, so I attend rather regularly anyway. I’d definitely attend more if they had Nobuo Uematsu melodies!
3) I am still trying to find piano sheet music for some of the FFVI tunes. That and FFIV, to me, have the best music.
http://www.redassedbaboon.com/culture/?ct_id=11
Write up from my friend I was talking about in an earlier comment post.