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Jason Michael Paul still remembers the day every kid on the block wanted to use his new Sega Genesis 16-bit.
“Ever since I was 5 years old, I’ve been playing video games, from playing Pong at my uncle’s house to Atari to Commodore 64—you name it,” the veteran concert producer tells WW. “It’s part of my culture, my quilt, if you will.”
On March 4, Paul will wrap Portland in that quilt by bringing Heroes: A Video Game Symphony to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Featuring music from over 20 games—including World of Warcraft, The Last of Us, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and The Elder Scrolls—Heroes, which is touring internationally will use the singers of Oregon Chorale and a 70-piece orchestra to emphasize the symphonic majesty of video game scores, complete with graphics from the featured franchises.
Paul’s motivation to create this concert experience emerges from desiring to do something different than his past work, but still connect with the gaming community he is part of. “I’ve talked the talk and I can walk the walk. I’ve actually been a gamer,” Paul says. “I’ve actually poured countless hours into this, so I have a very good intimate knowledge of the culture.”
Though Paul has produced hundreds of video game music concerts in his two-decade career, Heroes is the first concert presenting music from more than one game. “I wanted to make it so that we can swap out games whenever we want,” he says. “The story doesn’t change, but the heroes do, and the game titles do.”
Kevin Zakresky, the show’s conductor, loves working on Heroes because of its evolving nature. “With video game symphonies, it’s often quite a little bit more exciting because movements will come and go depending on what’s hot and what’s going on at the time,” he says. “For a classical concert, you pretty much know in advance what you’re going to do.”
Paul can swap out sections of the concert because its structure remains consistent, modeled after the monomyth detailed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero’s Journey.
Campbell, whose research influenced the creation of Star Wars, theorized that stories from across cultures typically follow a common template: A hero goes on an adventure, overcomes a struggle, and returns home transformed. Heroes follows that framework, using the voice of Nigel Carrington—the narrator of Dear Esther, a game in which the player explores an uninhabited Scottish island—to guide audiences through the musical journey.
“Everyone is on a journey and everyone can relate to this kind of story,” Paul says. “That’s what really inspired me, how common this story is in all of our movies, our books.”
Though this structure is adaptable, it is also ambitious. Most video game music concerts feature one franchise because of the logistical challenge of getting the rights to the music; Heroes requires dozens of licenses. (“It’s a lot of work to wrangle all those various publishers and licenses,” Paul admits.)
According to Zakresky, another unique part of Heroes is the degree to which fans recognize the music. When conducting, he strives for perfection, having noticed how easily fans pick up on mistakes.
“Video game music is the most listened-to orchestral music ever,” Zakresky says, “because video gamers will play for dozens of hours on just one game and they’ll be listening to certain themes. You’ll have this familiarity that I don’t think exists with any other [group] except for really hardcore fans of classical music.”
Zakresky loves that Heroes combines a passionate fan base and representation of Asian composers—like Final Fantasy’s Nobuo Uematsu—to create an experience that could chart the future of symphony music.
“Symphony orchestra audiences are getting more diverse as we continue on through history,” he says. “They’re not just the upper crust of society and of a certain wealth bracket. There’s always room to grow.”
SEE IT: Heroes: A Video Game Symphony plays at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335, orsymphony.org. 7:30 pm Monday, March 4. $25+.