Music and Video Games, Emotion and Culture, all in one gig

Video Games Live is back in the UK, and Metro has a fabulous interview with their leader, Tommy Tallarico:

When I was 10-years-old it was 1977 and Star Wars came out. And when I heard that music and heard that orchestra that’s what got me interested in orchestral music. We didn’t have the Internet back then so I went down to the library and started reading these interviews and articles about this John Williams guy and he would talk about Beethoven and Mozart and then I’d go and rent a record from the library about who’s this Beethoven guy? And when I heard Beethoven for the first time the first thing that popped into my head was, ‘Hey, this is the music from Bugs Bunny!’

And so because of pop culture, because of cartoons and a sci-fi film that got me interested in classic musical. We’re seeing the exact same thing happening now, 30 years later, with video games. People are getting more involved and understanding music, and appreciating the art and culture of symphonic music because of video games. And I think that’s a pretty darn cool thing, and it was mostly really the reason I created Video Games Live in the first place.

Can we please get Tallarico to play at The Proms?