‘Video Games Live’ – an immersive concert event – featured music from the most popular video games of all time for the fifth consecutive year in Doha. The concert offered the energy and excitement of a rock concert. The power and emotion of the symphony orchestra, and choir combined with the technology, interactivity, incredible visuals and fun sent the large audience into a kind of frenzy.
Completely synchronised cutting-edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and special on-stage interactive segments, aptly anchored by Tommy Tallarico (American video game music composer), dazzle audiences of all ages – gamers and non-gamers alike.
The two-hour-long phenomenal video game concert offered well-loved music from the most popular video games of all time. In the first hour, music of 10 video games was played with the videos arousing the passion and energy among the gathering. The games were namely; Castlevania (Tron), Mega Man, Resident Evil, WoW: Cataclysm Cinema, Overwatch, Beyond Good & Evil, Batman, Space Invaders, Metal Gear Solid, and Chrono Trigget/Cross.
In the second half of the concert, the audience was entertained with the music of video games such as Kingdom Hearts, DOTA2, AC Syndicate, Monkey Island, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill II, Street Fighter II, Halo Trilogy, and FF7 One-Winged Angel.
Outside Al Mayassa theatre at QNCC, the organisers and gamers set up multiple stalls displaying different gadgets and equipment associated with video games besides having the video games CDs.
The orchestra music was arranged by Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and the concert was aptly conducted by seasoned maestro Eimear Noone, the Oscar winning Irish conductor and composer living in Malibu, California. The energy and mastery of the female conductor won special accolades from the audience.
Eimear, who won an Oscar in 2014, splits her time between composing music for video games, feature films, television, and commercials, and conducting classical and game music concerts.
Most recently, Eimear composed and conducted for the iconic video game, World of WarCraft and its new expansion, Warlords of Draenor. She also composed the score for the feature film, The Donner Party (2009) starring Crispin Glover, among others.
As a conductor she has led many of the world’s great ensembles such as The Philadelphia Orchestra (The Mann Center), The Dallas Symphony (Myerson Hall), The Royal Philharmonic (Hammersmith Apollo Theatre), The Sydney Symphony (Sydney Opera House), and The National Symphony (Wolf Trap), just to name a few.
Tommy Tallarico, who anchored the music show, is an American video game music composer, musician, sound designer, television personality and live show creative director and producer.
He has worked on over 300 video game titles since the 1990s. He is actually the creator of the concert series – Video Games Live – a multi-award-winning symphony orchestra that has played video game music across the world since 2002.
Tommy made the concert more lively with his informative and explanatory chats and amusing chats about how and when certain video games were made and how much popular they got all around the world. An interesting episode took place when Tommy invited a teenage boy from the audience and asked him play a video game at the stage. Yet another highlight of the event was the music for a video game played by Qatar’s junior choir.
“I am very excited to attend the convert. It is lovely to watch the musicians play live as the games run a big video screen in the background. I got a chance to revisit my memories regarding some of the games that I used to play in my childhood days.
“The promotion activity for the video games outside the main auditorium was exciting. People with different backgrounds were seen taking interest in different sorts of games. It was really nice to be here,” said Jabira Abde, an Arab expatriate living in Doha.
