BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE VIA LEVEL AND GAIN
Think screen music is niche? Perhaps something reserved for new audiences, or performed for die-hard gamers or anime fans?
Tell that to Angelo Valdivia, who has just sold out two screen music performances at Adelaide Fringe.
Angelo (who you might know as a CutCommon contributor) is a performer, music educator, podcast host, and now — for the first time — conductor of the Adelaide Wind Orchestra. He’s been gearing up for AWO presents Joysticks & Journeys, and on the program can be found works by Joe Hisaishi (of Studio Ghibli fame), Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), and other game and anime legends.
So if you still think soundtracks aren’t quite for you, we’d recommend you hear what Angelo has to say. You might find yourself rocking out to Zelda before you know it — even if you’ve never played the game.
Angelo, you’re making your conducting debut with AWO — congratulations! What’s it been like to forge a new relationship with these musicians?
It’s been incredibly exciting, but also terrifying!
Everyone knows Adelaide is quite small compared to other cities, therefore the classical music circles are pretty tight. I’ve spent the past decade playing alongside my peers in this orchestra, so standing up the front as the leader for a change has been a tricky mental challenge to overcome!
What a change. And you’ve flown into your debut with an exciting start: scores from anime and games. How would you describe the vibe in an orchestra when you’re playing this music, which is so often playful and atmospheric?
It’s been really positive. The idea of this concert has been in the works for many years, with input from various past and present members. With such a wide range of ages and experiences in the orchestra, it’s been a great feeling to have younger musicians who are excited to play music from their favourite games or movies. But even better are some of our more veteran musos who’ve pulled me aside to say, ‘Gee, this music’s actually pretty good!’.
Still, it must be pretty difficult to conduct a concert in which the genre is ‘anime and video game music’, as this encompasses such an enormous range of styles. As we know, composers of these styles draw from so many influences, from classical to pop!
The great thing about our orchestra is that everyone has such diverse backgrounds, despite the musical communities being relatively small. That means everyone’s used to playing all kinds of genres, styles, and eras.
So switching from a sweeping Kingdom Hearts overture to a heavy, menacing piece like One-Winged Angel, and then over to a boppy My Neighbor Totoro suite works well in our group.
The Adelaide Fringe is usually when we play our film concerts, which works very much the same way.
This concert may appeal to people who are interested in pop culture, but what might others gain from the experience if they haven’t seen the films or games?
Game concerts since the 2010s have glorified the use of visual aids; usually projections of supercuts from that specific game. I think this works well at convention events like E3 or Gamescom — remember conventions before the pandemic, kids? — to help draw out the emotions and nostalgia from audiences who don’t frequent orchestral concerts. But from the beginning, I really want the audience to focus on the music itself, especially since so many people play games now.
Even our performers who’ve never heard of a Final Fantasy — let alone can tell which one is the seventh game in the series — have come to appreciate the music outside of the medium it represents.
I think of things like ABC Classics’ The Game Show, which is able to broadcast music from video games but still maintain the symphonic integrity of the station and its audience. We’re trying to achieve something similar with Joysticks & Journeys, and I believe the audience will appreciate that experience, too.
How do you think the performance of anime and game music can open musicians’ ears to new experiences? And do you reckon they’ll go out and play the games after?
I think it’s great that we have some people in the performance who haven’t experienced games or anime. I wasn’t alive to experience The Firebird in its heyday, but it’s regularly performed and persevered over time to the point where it’s one of my favourite orchestral works.
We’re at a point now where the lines separating game, anime, and film music are finally starting to blur and become part of the wider musical repertory. Music is capable of crossing all kinds of barriers when it stays in people’s hearts over time, no matter where or when it starts.
But to your question, a lot of our players are parents, auntie, uncles, or siblings of people who are familiar with these pop culture icons. Playing this music has the potential to be a way of connecting them with the experiences they know exist for so many other people. Similar to how I felt the first time I played The Firebird.
So what’s your approach to conducting this sort of music? Are you aiming to emulate the anime and game recordings, or to bring your own spirit into the live performance — perhaps in response to your interpretation of the score and relationship with the players?
I think trying to capture the scope and spirit of the music itself is what’s most important here. It’s important to maintain the essence of what the original stories portray. Something like Totoro, for example, isn’t a world-saving narrative, but rather a smaller, whimsical story with some bounce and childish joy. Then there’s Zelda, which is a much larger experience and features varying themes in different time signatures and styles.
Obviously, we don’t want to just bash out tunes for the sake of nostalgia and call it a day. I’m definitely trying to strike a balance between what the audience would love to hear, and upholding the artistic integrity of our orchestra.
Adelaide doesn’t get much opportunity to hear game and anime music performed at a professional standard, so it’s really exciting — and terrifying! — to aim towards that.
Scores in orchestral contexts are often considered a way to invite new audiences into the concert hall. But this doesn’t give these sorts of programs enough credit — that is, they’re genuinely exciting programs, they’re regularly performed, and they often yield enormous audiences; I’m thinking of a few Joe Hisaishi concerts I’ve seen! Why do we love this music outside the screen?
Nostalgia is the more obvious answer: the younger we are when we play a game or watch a movie, the more we cherish it. But more than that, games and anime have a tendency to tell stories that don’t come to live action films, so they stick with us a little more.
There’s a really interesting book I read a couple of years ago called Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life by Chris Kohler. I’d been reading books about game history for a year at that point, but Kohler’s book was the first to actually talk about composers. And something that dawned on me is that, broadly speaking, American composers working in Hollywood get so much recognition for their efforts in film, but when it comes to games, it’s the Japanese who seem to dominate. There are exceptions to that argument, of course, and the past 15 years or so is changing that with the rise of indie games and their soundtracks.
I think perhaps another reason is simply that many who want to hear this music live are starved for that kind of experience. I think of music like James Bond, Harry Potter, and Star Wars — they’re fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but outside of a pandemic, it’s not difficult to find live performances. What orchestras in Australia incorporate music from hugely influential properties like Neon Genesis? Or Overwatch? Or Pokémon?
Thankfully, we’re now witnessing a generation of musicians leading a change and legitimising this idea, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when people are lining up to come and see it.
Adelaide Fringe runs until 21 March. AWO presents Joysticks & Journeys (5 and 7 March) is sold out, but you can keep up to date with AWO on its Facebook page, or learn more about Angelo’s own journey into game music through his podcast Game Composure.
Images supplied.
