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Arnie Roth being interviewed before Sinfonia Drammatica show in SwedenArnie Roth being interviewed before Sinfonia Drammatica show in SwedenArnie Roth is a Chicago-based Grammy Award - winning conductor, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for conducting video game concert series such as Dear Friends, More Friends, VOICES (Japan), PLAY! A Video Game Symphony, Distant Worlds – Music from Final Fantasy, Symphonic Shades (Germany), and the recent Symphonic Fantasies show in Cologne.

On August 4, 2009, in the Konserthuset Stockholm, Arnie conducted the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the Sinfonia Drammatica concert. This concert combined performances of Chris Huelsbeck's “Symphonic Shades” with selections from “Drammatica -The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura”. A few hours before the show, we had the unique opportunity to talk with Arnie. We were able to gather fresh information and get the latest updates on his video game music work. In this exclusive, extensive and enlightening interview, Roth explains how the Sinfonia Drammatica event was born, defines his mission as an artist, talks about other projects he’s worked on, and provides even more facts that you simply can’t miss!

GameMusic.net:  Arnie, are you the type of artist who likes to talk about his works, or would you rather let your music speak for itself?
Arnie Roth:  I enjoy talking about a lot of the projects I was a part of. It really doesn’t matter to me whether I’m conducting video game music, soundtrack music, ballet, or symphonic classical repertoire. That’s not the important part. Believe it or not, the important part is actually making and performing that music live on stage with these great artists. Nobuo Uematsu’s been asked “What’s it like to work with an orchestra?” and the way Nobuo explains it is great. He says, “It’s like working with the most brilliant instrument possible, because every person in that orchestra has trained a lifetime to play one note perfectly”. It’s hard for most people to understand that so much care is taken and put into every little nuance, articulation, dynamic or pitch of every instrument, every note, and every bar of music. A lot of us, even those who work in this business, take it for granted.

You know I conducted Symphonic Shades last year with the WDR Symphony in Cologne. It’s interesting to compare the music - I find that Chris Huelsbeck’s music might have started with a very classic kind of melody, quite simple in its original germ. But a lot of these arrangements – although they showcase the orchestra beautifully – deal a lot with the arrangements themselves. In contrast, Shimomura’s music is quite a bit about the beautiful simplicity of the original melody. What I’m saying is that Chris takes the melody, and then goes running off with it in two-thousand different directions. For instance, the Turrican II piece is an extremely difficult score. Pianist Stefan Lindrgen is fantastic, and he’s doing a great job - this is major top level performing. The Shimomura might be a very exciting and compelling orchestration, but it’s a little more focused on the original melody and structure. Even though it’s beautifully orchestrated as well, I found this structure a little more similar to the Final Fantasy work that I do, where the melody is the driving force. Everything is organized around the melody. With Chris’s arrangements, we get the idea of the melody, and then immediately go over the map with it.