watched Play! A Video Game Symphony at esplanade concert hall. It's the Asian premiere, one of the events organized for singapore arts festival 2007, featuring Singapore Festival Orchestra, Vocal Consort and NUS choir. The concert was started by Fanfare, a piece composed specially for the event, followed by solid repertoire that includes music from super mario bros, sonic the hedgehog, kingdom hearts, world of warcraft, the legend of zelda, final fantasy VI and VII.

the live orchestra performance was accompanied by 3 big screens at the top of the stage. Now and then they flashed clips from the video games, alternating with the shots of members of the orchestra. Thanks to the zooming on the screen, we also felt the stress watching the organist played the pipe organ and the clarinetist playing his instrument.. :) the video game clips kept me entertained, especially for those songs I'm not familiar with.

the 100-strong choir did a wonderful job. at first I pitied them as they had to sit properly on stage way before the concert started, still seated for the first few songs, and when they did sing, it's just a vocal sound with no lyrics whatsoever. but at the second half their songs began to have some meaningful words and the chorus enhanced the whole compositions.