Beep Beep Zip: Video Game Music Goes Classical at Washington Orchestra

The Washington Post

16:40 JST, November 23, 2024

When Jamin Morden was a kid growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, he spent a lot of time with his hands around a Super Nintendo controller, steering characters through games like the Legend of Zelda, “Chrono Trigger” and “Super Mario Kart.” It was the beginning of a lifelong attachment to video games.

It also ignited a love of music.

“When I was a really young kid, my family figured out I really like music through video game music,” Morden said. “They were the tunes that got stuck in my head.”

Those catchy game soundtracks eventually propelled Morden into classical symphonic music, a master’s degree in French horn performance at Yale and, now, a role as the music director of the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra (WMGSO).

Formed in 2012, WMGSO is a full orchestra and choir dedicated to performing video game music. On Saturday at 6 p.m., the group will have their fall ensemble concert featuring 145 performers at Alexandria’s Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. The program contains a mix of music from or inspired by classic games – including “Sonic Heroes,” Final Fantasy V and VI, and “Super Mario 64” – and more recent titles such as “Journey” and “Helldivers 2.”

“This is great music,” said Morden, 37, who also teaches music in Montgomery County Public Schools. “In my opinion, some of the best symphonic music right now is being written for video games.”

Video game music itself has ballooned into a larger field since the early days of the classic “Super Mario Bros.” theme. Original game designers were limited by the amount of information that could be stored on a game cartridge. Technological upgrades expanded the possibilities for creators, offering even more expansive landscapes for storytelling and gameplay. Game soundtracks also grew more ambitious, with some featuring the epic sweep and orchestration of film scores.

Orchestras devoted to the music have popped up all over the world, including a handful of touring companies and regional groups. In 2023, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences introduced a new Grammy category for best game music. WMGSO’s own ranks have jumped from 40 players in 2012 to today’s 145.

On Thursday night, the orchestra gathered for a dress rehearsal at the Rockville synagogue, where they practice weekly. The group’s take on “dress rehearsal” speaks to the orchestra’s overall attitude; performers can dress up in the formal clothes they would wear on Saturday or dress down in whatever they want. The people filtering into the practice space were in ballgowns and bathrobes, Sonic the Hedgehog costumes, and business suits.

With the average performer age in the early 30s, the orchestra is also much younger than the typical group running through Brahms or Offenbach. Many of the performers grew up playing Nintendo and Sega Genesis and PlayStation, later taking up classical instruments and finding a setting at WMGSO that fused the two.

“When I joined, it was more of a community thing for me,” said El Calderon, 32, a violinist and the group’s assistant conductor. “Here was this group of classical musicians who are around my age, which is hard to find, who are also gamers. And a lot of them are queer, which is really cool. So you just have this center of a Venn diagram that you don’t find in many places.”

WMGSO plays two full ensemble shows a year, usually in the spring and fall. The group also gives around three to five smaller performances annually.

When members sit down to plan a program, they are limited as to what they can play, especially with classic titles from the ’80s and ’90s. “Typically, none of this music is actually written up,” Morden said. “So we rely heavily on our own people to transcribe and arrange it for us.”

An orchestra and choir, however, give WMGSO a full musical tool kit to work with. Morden cited the famous Mario theme as an example. “It’s bouncy, so if I want to arrange this for the orchestra, maybe I’ll play that first bit on the marimba or xylophone, a percussion instrument that you hit. That way you get that bounce.”

At Thursday’s dress rehearsal, the orchestra tested out one of their odder pieces, “Diggy Diggy Hole,” a song inspired by “Minecraft” that went viral online and that Morden called “an absurd dwarven ode to digging holes.”

In the hands of WMGSO, the piece was reinvented into a stomping march filled out by swirling choir vocals and slamming percussion, all culminating in a raised-fist finish.

“We are positioned to give an incredible performance on Saturday,” Morden said as the rehearsal wrapped.