Video Game Music Choir

See website.

September 24th, 2011. - Gay Gamer

La daaa

Da dadadadadaaaaaa

Ok, that was supposed to be The Legend Of Zelda, but I can't sing. Maybe that's why I have such a weak spot for a cappella music. And when you start mixing that passion for music with my love of video games - well - you can't expect me to not talk about it.

Video Game Music Choir is a group of talented gamers led by Julia Seeholzer. The choir performs and records vocal rearrangements of popular video game themes, giving them their own creative twists and adding completely new dynamics to the classic scores.

Julia started the choir at Berkley College in 2009 as part of the Video Game Music Club. Her first arrangement was "Escape From The City" from Sonic Adventure 2, which exploded on YouTube. Since, the choir has released versions of themes from various games spanning multiple platforms, most notably songs from Zelda, Kirby, The Sims, Smash Bros., World of Warcraft, Uncharted, and Final Fantasy.

Every song is beautifully layered with so many different voices. Nothing is overpowered and you almost feel as if you can hear each individual singer at the same time. The effect is raw and emotionally provocative: it is simultaneously powerful and soothing. As the group has grown in size, talent and popularity, more singers have begun contributing to the adaptations. The choir recently put out a 4 song EP, on which Julia, Joanna Sugameli, and Stephanie Barker have been credited for the arrangements. The EP as well as other songs from VGMC can be found here.

The gamer community is a tight and involved one, and that really comes across in this group. Their releases are genuine: real, passionate people interacting and singing with real, passionate people. The voices aren't recorded in isolation, nor are they digitally enhanced or touched up, which, along with speaking for their sheer skill, translates into an organic and dynamic performance on each song.

If you live in the area of Massachusetts and are a hardcore gaming fanatic, a choir aficionado, or both, I definitely suggest you experience one of their concerts. Julia has recently told me that they are planning a couple of shows in the near future so stay tuned!

February 7th, 2013. - IX Daily

Video, see website. - Daily Motion

The best musical thing I’ve stumbled upon recently is a group called the Video Game Music Choir, who perform adaptations of video game themes with great technical and vocal skill. (We all know I love this kind of thing; refer back to posts on adaptations of the themes of Game of Thrones, Zelda, etcetera.) The founder and musical director is Julia Seeholzer, while the art direction and creative design comes from Daniel Jimenez—each have contributed arrangements to the project, and the group is made up of a group of Berklee College of Music students.

What makes this especially neat is that it isn’t a one-off — the Video Game Music Choir have released an album!

The album is called /sing, downloadable here for however much you want to pay, and also streamable/shareable. It contains adaptations from games as wildly varied as The Sims to Sonic Adventure 2 to Portal to Super Smash Brothers Brawl. And speaking of those last two, you can see via YouTube how singularly neat these choir performances really are.

December 15th, 2011. - Tor.com

The Video Game Music Choir is a Boston based group that exclusively sings video game music . With arrangements from Portal, Uncharted, and Sonic Adventure 2, they have a little bit of something for everybody.P

On December 14th at 7:30PM, they will be having a winter concert at Trinity Church in Boston, MA. It's a free concert, so if you are in the area you should check it out.

December 13th, 2011. - Kotaku

Julia Seeholzer once woke up in the small hours of the morning to beat the Elite Four on her brother's Gameboy. She never saved, so he didn't find out, but Tetris and Pokemon hooked her for life. These days, raiding on Perenolde is her obsession; she doesn't believe you can have too many pets. Daniel Jimenez's favorite game moment is from Star Ocean 3; he thought the second disc was just bonus material, until a sudden plot reveal changed his expectations utterly.

Some game music is out of their reach; anything involving orchestral instruments is a translation nightmare when working with Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass.
They, and the other members of Berklee's Video Game Music Choir (VGMC), spread the gospel of great game music, a capella style.

Boston's Berklee College of Music was founded by Lawrence Berk in 1945. He wanted to give working musicians practical instruction and believed strongly that the best way to learn was from practitioners, not academics, a policy that Berklee follows to this day. Julia and Daniel are Berklee students (Julia's in her final year), and as avid gamers they wanted to express their second great love, gaming, through the medium of their first, music.

"Music has been there my whole life," Daniel told me. "When the words are missing, music is there to speak."

The Choir is Julia's inspiration. She'd been a member of Berklee's Video Game Music Club in her freshman year, but she wanted to create something in the spirit of Video Games Live. Choral music had been part of her life since grade school, so forming a choir to sing compositions inspired by videogames was a natural next step. Daniel joined a year later, and has since been put in charge of Art Direction and Creative Design. Julia is Musical Director of the Choir.

The VGMC has twenty five members who perform in front of an audience at least twice each term. Julia would love to take the Choir on the road, especially to a game convention, if only they had the funding. Transport and accommodation for twenty five people is a logistical challenge they haven't been able to solve - yet! Their first album, /sing, was released on September 12th of this year and features tracks based on Portal, Civilization IV, and the Legend of Zelda, among others. Personally I have a soft spot for their World of Warcraft arrangement, but then I'm a recovering Warcraft addict.

Some game music is out of their reach; 8-bit tends towards the fast and chromatic, which is impossible to sing, and anything involving orchestral instruments is a translation nightmare when working with Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. That makes choosing the pieces the Choir then rearranges and performs the biggest challenge they face. Love is the key, according to Julia. "Each choir member who decides to arrange something usually picks the piece because it means something to them, or the game is one of their favorites." For Julia, Pokemon Medley was her personal challenge, and it's still being tweaked for another performance this fall. Daniel's Everest was his Kirby arrangement. "I had to think of a way to share the melody with all the vocal parts available, risking some of the smoothness between each of the gaps, making it less dynamic." - The Escapist

(See website) - WoW Insider

Super Smash Bros. Brawl es un juegazo: eso es así. Cuántas horas podemos haber dedicado a curtirnos el lomo con Mario y compañía, ¿eh, chicos? Preparad pañuelos antes de ver este vídeo, porque tiene carga emocional: es la canción principal del juego (esa con la que todos flipamos cuando la escuchamos por primera vez) interpretada por un coro. ¡Ay, qué bonito!

July 28, 2011. - Anait Games

Apresento-lhe o lindo coral com temática de video games. No vídeo abaixo podemos conferir o belo coral Video Game Music Choir, que dentre tantas músicas de seu show, apresentou ao vivo, em seu concerto de primavera de 2011, o tema de Super Smash Bros. Brawl. A iniciativa desse incrível coral vem de Daniel Jimenez, o qual reuniu todos os músicos para enfim fazer seu recital. Abaixo você confere o resultado:

July 26, 2011. - Reino do Cogumelo

(See Website) - Inven

Hoy voy a contaros una bonita historia. Julia, va a la escuela de música de Boston, Massachusetts y tiene una cazadora elfa de la noche en el servidor americano de Perenolde. En su escuela, tienen una banda que han dedicado a grabar la introducción de World of Warcraft Original.

Con ello, han pulido un excelente vídeo de su último concierto y está repleto de canciones de Wrath of the Lich King y el juego original tal y como ella cuenta en los foros americanos. Hay que aclarar, que lo hacen por simple diversión.

Los chicos de Blizzard no tardaron en felicitarla por su trabajo y, incluso, llegaron a compartirla con el propio Russell Brower, compositor de muchas de las melodías de World of Warcraft. ¿No es increíble?

¡Espero que lo disfrutéis! - Guias WoW

World of Warcraft - Video Game Music Choir Live 2010

While you are waiting for BlizzCon 2011 or if you like to watch some neat video, you should check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJtuCA4vq2g

February 7, 2011. - Wow Juju

If you’re a video gamer, you’ve probably had nights when you couldn’t get the Tetris theme music out of your head. Well, a group of students at the Berklee College of Music takes that kind of composition seriously — and has even formed a choir to perform it.

We’ll talk with the founder of Berklee’s Video Game Music Choir and preview Wednesday’s performance of music from video games.

Guests:

Julia Seeholzer, founder and director, Video Game Music Choir, Berklee College of Music

Daniel Jimenez, member, Video Game Music Choir, Berklee College of Music

December 8th, 2010. - Radio Boston

We've all done it - hummed the Super Mario Bros theme song, sung along to the Final Fantasy fight music, and looked up our favorite gaming tunes on YouTube. But here's a group of college students taking it to a new level.

The Berklee College of Music in Boston has assembled a choir quite different from those of other universities - they only sing video game music. And we're not just talking about big choral songs that have appeared in games. We're talking about stuff like the background music in the Pokemon Game Boy games.

The school also has a special summer program specifically designed to teach students how to create video game music. In other words, this is the coolest music-centric college in the country.

It's all done a cappella, so no pesky instruments get in the way. Sure, it's not exactly anything that'll get into Carnegie Hall anytime soon, but come on - if you were a student at Berklee, you can't say you wouldn't want to join.

Dec 10, 2010 - Games Radar