Andy Brick is a contemporary American composer, conductor, and symphonist notable for his contributions to film scores, video game music and symphonic game music concerts.
Andy Brick is a contemporary American composer, conductor, and symphonist notable for his contributions to film scores, video game music and symphonic game music concerts.
Brick was born in New York in 1965 but grew up in suburban Chicago. Brick studied composition under Pulitzer Prize winning composer Leslie Bassett at the University of Michigan and completed graduate studies in composition at the Mannes School of Music in Manhattan. [1] In 1990, After completing his formal conservatory studies, Brick began scoring independent films. In 1996 Brick won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers young film composers competition. [2] He later studied under, and worked with, famed Walt Disney orchestrator Danny Troob and Maestro Paul Lustig Dunkel of the American Composers Orchestra [3]
Brick has composed and/or orchestrated music for game titles that include Maxis' Sim City: Rush Hour, Midway's Stranglehold , [4] Electronic Arts' The Sims 2 [4] and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning [5] as well as Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , Bungie's Halo 3 , and Square Enix's Final Fantasy series. His music has also been featured in such game titles as Arc the Lad by Working Designs, Shadoan by Interplay, The Far Reaches by 3DO, Tesselmania by MECC and others. [4]
In August 2003 Brick conducted the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in the first Symphonic Game Music Concert outside Japan, at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany. Andy wrote the fanfare to this historic concert event where his music for Merregnon was featured. Andy Brick served as the exclusive principal conductor and music director of the concert series leading repeatedly sold-out performances from 2003–2007. [2] In 2020 Brick premiered Game ON! with National Symphony Orchestra at the historic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts [6]
Brick has conducted over 70 game titles including Final Fantasy, Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Halo, and World of Warcraft with orchestras throughout the world including Prague Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic, Bratislava Symphony, The Czech National Symphony, The North Carolina Symphony, The Eugene Symphony, The Filmharmonic of Prague and members of the New York Philharmonic and Detroit Symphony. His performances have been described as "Mesmerizing" leading to "Thunderous ovations generally reserved for Rock Stars." [7] [8] He has also worked in films for productions such as The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and The Music Man .
Brick served as Distinguished Professor and Director of the Music and Technology department at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. [9] He has also been the subject of feature stories on the CBS Evening News, [9] [10] and Billboard Magazine. [11]
James Hannigan is a BAFTA Award winning composer and producer. His credits include entries in the Harry Potter, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, RuneScape, Evil Genius,EA Sports and Theme Park video game series, among numerous others. He has also scored full-cast adaptations of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, the Audie Award winning Alien dramas (2016–2019), BBC Radio 4's adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens and Neverwhere.
Merregnon is a series of works that blend orchestral music with fantasy fiction. Since its inception in 1999, the project has produced several albums and live concert performances. The two most recent installments, Merregnon: Land of Silence and Merregnon: Heart of Ice, were premiered in 2021 and 2024 respectively, with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz. All projects are created, directed and produced by Merregnon Studios founder Thomas Böcker.
The Symphonic Game Music Concerts are a series of award-winning orchestral video game music concerts first performed in 2003 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, notable for being the longest running and the first of their kind outside Japan. They are produced by Thomas Böcker and performed by various orchestras conducted by Andy Brick (2003–2007), Arnie Roth, Niklas Willén and Eckehard Stier.
Jonne Valtonen is a Finnish composer, arranger and orchestrator. He is renowned for his contributions in the field of demoscene and tracker music, under the name Purple Motion, and with Future Crew.
Video Games Live (VGL) is a concert series created by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. The concerts consist of segments of video game music performed by a live orchestra with video footage and synchronized lighting and effects, as well as several interactive segments with the audience. Incorporated in 2002, Video Games Live has performed over 500 shows internationally.
PLAY! A Video Game Symphony was a concert series that featured music from video games performed by a live orchestra. The concerts from 2006 to 2010 were conducted by Arnie Roth. From 2010, Andy Brick took the position of principal conductor and music director. Play! was replaced by the Replay: Symphony of Heroes concert series.
Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer/arranger, pianist and musicologist. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor for English National Ballet.
The Czech National Symphony Orchestra is a Czech symphony orchestra based in Prague. The orchestra principally gives concerts at the Smetana Hall, Municipal House. The CNSO also performs at the Rudolfinum.
Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix that includes video games, motion pictures, and other merchandise. The original Final Fantasy video game, published in 1987, is a role-playing video game developed by Square, spawning a video game series that became the central focus of the franchise. The primary composer of music for the main series was Nobuo Uematsu, who single-handedly composed the soundtracks for the first nine games, as well as directing the production of many of the soundtrack albums. Music for the spin-off series and main series games beginning with Final Fantasy X was created by a variety of composers including Masashi Hamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Kumi Tanioka, as well as many others.
Thomas Böcker is a German producer. He is the founder of Merregnon Studios and creative director of his orchestral music projects Merregnon and Game Concerts.
Robin Hoffmann is a German composer, orchestrator and arranger.
Andrew John Skeet is an English musician, composer and music producer. He has written scores for television and film and worked with many well-known composers and artists as an arranger, orchestrator and conductor.
Derek Gleeson is an Irish/American musician. Born in Dublin, Ireland. He is currently the music director and conductor of the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and has been the conductor at the Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival. Since 2012 Gleeson is also music director & conductor of the Rachmaninov Festival Orchestra. Since January 2016 Gleeson is Principal Guest Conductor or The Harbin Symphony Orchestra, Harbin, China. He also composes musical scores for film and television and of symphonic music for the concert hall.
Symphonic Legends – Music from Nintendo was a symphonic tribute concert held in Cologne, Germany on 23 September 2010 by the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, featuring video game music from Japanese game developer Nintendo. The concert featured symphonic arrangements found in some of Nintendo's biggest game series, such as Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Pikmin, F-Zero and Donkey Kong. The concert was produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composers and musicians Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo, as well as Japanese game music composers Masashi Hamauzu, Hayato Matsuo, Shiro Hamaguchi and German film composer Torsten Rasch.
Merregnon Studios is a company based in Dresden, Germany, founded by Thomas Böcker. It produces recordings and concerts worldwide, including the orchestral Merregnon and Game Concerts series.
Leigh Phillips is a composer, orchestrator, and conductor of music for film, media, and theatre. In addition to this, he is responsible for developing unique orchestrations, and arrangements, of film-music for live concert performance and recording.
Emmanuel Fratianni is a conductor, composer and jazz pianist active in the international concert world as well as the music of film, television, video games. Born in the city of Montreux, Switzerland of Italian origin, Emmanuel retains right to work status in both the United States and European Union. Beginning in 2010 he was awarded the position of principal conductor of the internationally acclaimed concert series Video Games Live, and is also known for his compositions on the multi-award-winning score of the video game Advent Rising.
Laurie Robinson is an American music producer, composer, and solo artist active in the film, television, video games industries as well as the concert world. She is creative director at the Collective Music & Media Group, a production company which is known for large music installations. She is also known for her compositions on the multi-award winning score of the video game Advent Rising with Tommy Tallarico and Emmanuel Fratianni.
Final Symphony is a symphonic concert tour first held at the Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal in Wuppertal (Germany) on May 11, 2013. The concert tour features arrangements of video game music selected from the Final Fantasy series, specifically Final Fantasy VI, VII, and X. It is divided into three acts: a symphonic poem for VI, a piano concerto for X, and a symphony for VII. The concert is produced and directed by Thomas Böcker, with arrangements provided by Finnish composer and musician Jonne Valtonen, along with Roger Wanamo and Final Fantasy X composer Masashi Hamauzu with consultation from Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. The original works were composed by Uematsu and Hamauzu, and an introductory piece was composed by Valtonen. The premiere concert was performed by the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra under conduction from Eckehard Stier, with guest performer Benyamin Nuss joining the orchestra on piano.
Final Symphony II is a symphonic concert tour first held at the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Germany on August 29, 2015. The concert performances feature arrangements of video game music selected from the Final Fantasy series, specifically Final Fantasy V, VIII, IX, and XIII. It is divided into four acts, one per game, with the newest game, Final Fantasy XIII, first, and the oldest, V, last; all four arrangements are single-section arrangements, with the IX portion as a piano concerto. The tour is a follow-up to Final Symphony, a similar tour of orchestral arrangement performances from Final Fantasy VI, VII, and X beginning in 2013. The concert is produced and directed by Thomas Böcker of Merregnon Studios, with arrangements provided by Finnish composer and musician Jonne Valtonen, along with Roger Wanamo and Final Fantasy XIII composer Masashi Hamauzu. The original works were composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Hamauzu, and an introductory piece was composed by Valtonen. The premiere concert was performed by the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn under conduction from Eckehard Stier, with guest performer Mischa Cheung joining the orchestra on piano.
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