Hans Zimmer's studio

Some incredible photographs of Hans Zimmer's studio:

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2010/04/18/hans-zimmers-studio/

This is how the current king of movie soundtracks works.  It's almost impossible to be jealous, because it feels somewhat like being jealous of the Queen for living in Buckingham Palace.

Memories of Fantasia Concert Report

Last weekend, I had the privilege of heading down to Sydney to attend Eminence's Memories of Fantasia concert held at the Sydney Convention Centre on Darling Harbour.  I've been a long time fan of games and anime live music performances, and Eminence's in particular, but this particular concert was extra special for me, as the guest composers were none other than Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3) and Kenji Ito (Dawn of Mana, Romancing SaGa, Okami Kakushi, just to name a few).  

The reason this was such a big deal for me is not only because the Mana series is one of my absolute favourite game franchises, but Kenji Ito (along with Yasunori Mitsuda) was probably the first sound designer whose name I went to the trouble of learning.  Ben Burtt is probably the sound designer most soundies mention when asked who their inspiration is (and that's certainly true for me too), but way back as an ickle ten year old I spent even more effort hunting down Secret of Mana's sound effects than I did its music.  It's had a curiously subliminal effect of me throughout my sound design career, and to this day I can recognise a sound from Secret of Mana just as clearly as any from Mario.

I digress.  This is supposed to be about the concert!

 

 

Held at the Sydney Convention Centre's auditorium, the venue was very nice with reasonably good acoustics, though the lack of assigned seating was something of a shame.  Eminence are fairly lax about people recording their performances, but this is the only picture I took as I was more interested in listening to the music than snapping pictures of the musicians.  Actually, the constant camera clicks were a little annoying, similar to someone constantly coughing through a show.

Here's the set list breakdown:  

First set was all Hiroki Kikuta.

Fear of the Heavens (Secret of Mana) - this is the iconic opening theme of Secret of Mana.  They did a beautiful rendition of it, marred briefly by distortion coming through the cello's mike.  Fortunately the stage technician was quick to fix it.

The Little Sprite (Secret of Mana) - Sprite's theme!  Very cute, surprising choice!

Powell (Seiken Densetsu3) - Another really odd choice, considering this was the only SD3 piece, but heaps of fun and very nostalgic.  Flute got rather overpowered by percussion in this one, the dynamics were frequently off actually (unusual, since this is where Eminence normally shines), but I suspect it was more how they'd been miked than anything else.

Meridian Dance (Secret of Mana) - I'd heard this one at Eminence's ensemble performance in Perth last year, and was very pleased to get an encore.  It has fantastic energy, and the violins (where Eminence is strongest) really shone.

TENRYO 2nd Movement (Original) - one of Kikuta's original pieces, it was a two-instrument deal, one synth pad plus Hiroaki Yura (Eminence's founder) soloing on violin.  Very nice, melancholic and mellow.  I am tempted to search out more of Kikuta's original works.

The Magic Bakery (Shining Hearts) - Very cute, all plucked strings.  I'd never heard the Shining Hearts soundtrack before.  By this point, I'd begun to suspect that Kikuta's personal favourites leaned heavily towards the light, cheerful pieces.

The Windy Road (Shining Hearts) - Somewhat embarrassingly, don't recall this one very clearly.

 

They broke here to have an interview with Kikuta, it was quite interesting as he has such an unusual and varied history.  After all, he started out as a manga artist assistant for Shonen Sunday (participating in a doujinshi circle before that).  He also writes, and started out doing sound effects for Square before moving onto music!  He has no classical training, but oodles of talent, clearly.  You can really be jealous of such people.

 

The second set was miscellaneous!

Aerith's Theme (FF7) - Very famous theme.  It's always very beautiful, though it's another one of those I've heard at all of these concerts and am about ready to hear something else.  However, Eminence's pianist really is to be commended for such a brilliant performance.

Memories from days far away (5 centimetres per second) - All of the music associated with Makoto Shinkai's work is beautiful, and the piano in this was particularly lovely.

My Neighbour Totoro Medley - Another one that is always great but is also done to death.  How to solve, though?  Because veteran attendees might have heard it heaps of times, but for the people attending their first anime/games concert, these old staples are so loved!  In any case, it was called Memories of Fantasia, so no great surprise.

Canta Per Me (Noir) - They played this one in Perth as well, it's an awesome piece even without vocals.  Noir had such a fantastic soundtrack, perhaps one day we can beg Salvos Nos from Eminence too.

The Song (Gundam SeeD) - The best thing to come out of Gundam SeeD.  No joke.  Another repeat from Perth that was very welcome.

 

Here they broke the set program to play the amazing Mario medley too!  We were robbed of an encore, I suppose they moved it into the middle of the concert to save time (since they started late.)  By their own admission, they did not have much time to rehearse, perhaps that was why.  (You could hear that they were a little less polished than normal.)
 

Third set was mostly Kenji Ito.  His work often has a very lounge music sort of feel, which is nice but maybe not the sort of thing you expect to hear at a concert.  One nice thing, though, he performed the piano for all of his own pieces!  It's always very awesome when a composer does that.

 

Started out with Gusha no Mai (Dawn of Mana) - enjoyed this one mostly because of my familiarity with Dawn of Mana.  Makes use of a good range of instruments and has a great bounce to it.

Prologue (Culdcept II) - Never played this, and was unfamiliar with the soundtrack.  Nice piano.

Memeto Mori (Wizardry Renaissance) - Also unfamiliar with this, but enjoyed it a lot because it was both evil and melancholic and that's always a plus with me.

Overture-Opening Title - Dawn of the Romance (Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song) - Never been a huge fan of the SaGa music, it's technically very good but a little generic for my tastes.

Afternoon Rain (Okami Kakushi) - Very pretty, they brought out their vocalist at this point.  Someone has uploaded a video of it on youtube if you want to sample it.

Netsujo No Ritsudo (Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song) - A bit more upbeat, everybody clapped along to this one, had some good energy.

 

That concluded Ito's set!  His interview was amusing mostly because it got off-track so often as Hiroaki kept correcting the MC on absolutely irrelevant topics.  Some interesting anecdotes in there, and Hiroaki can name drop composers like nobody's business.  By Ito's answers, it's very obvious he's a longtime workhorse of the industry, and very classically trained.  

 

Then there were two secret-secret original secret vocal pieces that Eminence was being all super-secret about and nobody is allowed to talk about, so I won't, beyond saying that they were pretty cool and I am really looking forward to December.

 

No encore, sadly.  Eminence does always have a signing afterwards, which I unashamedly took advantage of.  All in all, a successful concert!  Looking forward to the next one already.