After years of campaigning from fans of the medium, video game music will finally make its debut in the BBC Proms this year, with a performance of several gaming scores presented in a new concert as part of the prestigious Classical Music Festival.
While the Proms are undoubtedly a niche event in just one country, this is also a pretty significant step for the acceptance of video game scores and the composers behind them as mainstream art worthy to sit alongside ‘true’ classical compositions. Music from film and television have had a role in the proms for many years, but gaming has always struggled to achieve the same recognition.
The video game concert, titled ‘From 8-Bit to Infinity’, will take place on Monday August 1st at 7.30pm, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the gorgeous 150-year old venue that has already played host to many Final Fantasy concerts over the years.
We don’t know all of the featured music yet, but the gaming prom’s page on the BBC Website does reveal some of what we’ll be hearing.
Four pieces are listed, though it’s clear that the concert will feature more. As it stands, the concert’s largest segment appears to be a Battlefield 2042 Suite, which is fourteen minutes of the shooter’s music as composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir and Sam Slater. The second largest piece, at eight minutes, is some of Kow Otani’s score from Shadow of the Colossus.
Finally, there’s two shorter four-minute performances of some music from Kingdom Hearts by Yoko Shimomura and Dear Esther from Jessica Curry, who has been notably tireless in promoting game music in the UK.
These tracks make up around 30 minutes of music. While a run-time for the show isn’t yet known, I’d expect it to run for at least 45 minutes or an hour – so that does leave some music as an unknown.
Not listed in the Programme but mentioned in the description is music from “the classic console titles of the 1980s” – though it’s unclear what games this presumed medley would involve. Being the UK, it’s as likely this could be music from the Commodore 64 as the Nintendo Entertainment System. The question is what might be featured beyond this. We’ll find out in full when the Prom airs on BBC4 this August.