Music and sound play a large part in video games. Have you ever tried turning off your speakers while playing your favorite game? If so, then you know how important music is to creating a great game. Music can set the mood of a game, highlight key scenes, and help the game create a sense of identity.

Just think about how different the music usually is for a major battle scene in Halo or Call of Duty 2 versus the music used in family friendly titles such as Pokémon or Mario Party 7. Popular video games often have very memorable title tracks: who can hear the theme song from the Legend of Zelda without feeling a bit nostalgic?

No one knows the importance of video game music better than the game developers themselves. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that if a concert of video game music were to be held, it would occur at a gaming industry event. This week, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference announced that they will be hosting a live concert of gaming music, which they are calling Video Games Live (VDL). The final day of the March 2006 conference in San Jose, CA will feature performances of music from a mix of classic video game titles.

Game Developers Convention director, Jamil Moledina, is very excited about the live concert. “Video Games Live is a milestone in the evolution of games as an art form in world culture,” he notes. Moledina feels that the inclusion of Video Games Live in the convention programs fits in perfectly with the organizers’ goals of “provoking innovation among game creatorsâ€� and will promote the production of “ideas that have dramatic reach into the greater entertainment audience.”

The Video Games Live concert is scheduled for 8pm on Friday, March 24th at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. All music will be performed onsite by the Symphony Silicon Valley orchestra and the company’s full chorus. Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Warcraft, Myst, and Castlevania will all have their music featured on the concert’s program list. Additional featured scores will be taken from Medal of Honor, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy. To wrap up the night, the Symphony Silicon Valley orchestra has planned a medley of music from classic arcade games, highlighting 20 of world’s most beloved arcade titles.

The Game Developers Convention hosted a similar, albeit smaller, concert of video game music last year, and was met with great appeal by the concert’s attendees. The 2005 Convention program included a performance by Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu in which he led the Symphony Silicon Valley in a performance of classic tracks from the long-running Final Fantasy game franchise.

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