At the heart of this concert is legendary Video Game Music pioneer and composer Rob Hubbard.
Graduating from college in Hull in the 1960s, Rob spent his formative years as a gigging musician in a succession of rock bands playing in the North-East, and often further afield.
A friendship with fellow musician Steve Daggett (later of Lindesfarne) led Rob to the studio and a fascination with electronic studio gear and music production. This interest quickly extended into home computers, and when the Commodore 64 appeared with its legendary "SID" sound chip, Rob knew he had to have one.
Almost his first instinct was to use it to make an honest bob, so he set to work writing educational programmes, only to find the market was not really in the mood. However, he had also started to program tunes into the computer (starting with "The Blue Danube": it was very common for composers to experiment with classical music to test the waters).
In the 1983-1984 period, there was a real goldrush in personal computers in the UK, and chance contacts led Rob to start working on a game for a local company. Unfortunately, this was never released - but Rob utilised the music he had started to write for that game and packaged it up with some more demos to pitch for music programming jobs.
His first contracts were Mastertronic's "Action Biker (with Clumsy Colin)" and Incentive's "Confuzion". Both of these were well reviewed. His real breakthrough piece was "Thing on a Spring", an original composition full of spring noises, bounce and percussion that was simply mind-blowing to the listeners.
This was followed by the theme from "Monty on the Run", initially inspired by "Devil's Galop". Taken in a completely new direction, it offered manic violin playing, Simmonds drums, a guitar solo, and a section at the end seemingly designed to kill string players. After Monty on the Run hit the market, Rob never had to actively look for work again, and he became a rock star to a certain impessionable youth.
After an extraordinary period of creative growth from 1985 to 1988 and tiring of the freelance life, Rob was offered a chance to join Electronic Arts: at that time, a new and vibrant company with a fresh outlook and new ambitions. The chance to expand his musical horizons and explore the outer limits of music interactivity gave Rob a fresh outlook on music, and his work started appearing on consoles and PCs. In 1997 he was promoted to a management job to reflect the change in focus from composing music to licencing it.
Tiring of corporate life and missing the UK, Rob came back in 2001 and kept himself busy with gigs and music, as well as other occasional jobs, even playing piano on the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry!
In 1998, Rob contributed some tracks to the first commercially released CD of Commodore 64 music remixed in studios: "Back in Time", from Chris Abbott's newly established record label "C64Audio.com". Rob's involvement continued over the next twenty years with live events, concerts and CD contributions, culminating in his participation in 8-Bit Symphony.
With classical and jazz always looming large in his background, the opportunity soon came to realise his own tracks with orchestral sounds. Starting with his own arrangement of "Kentlla" in the 90s, he teamed up with US Musician Steven Scherer in 2000 to score three of his tracks for C64Audio.com ("WAR", "Kentilla" and "Food Feud").
In 2005 he was given the chance to orchestrate one of his pieces for the "Play" concert attached to the 2005 Games Development Conference in Leipzig. Orchestrating "International Karate", he scored it using as wide a variety of sonic palette as he could, to great effect. An improved and unedited version of this orchestration kicks off the second half of the concert.
In 2017, a Kickstarter "Project Hubbard" successfully funded to produce his official biography/reference manual, to support his brief return to C64 composing to create new Commodore 64 music, and to produce his first studio album of "premixes" - a concept album called "Hubbard'80" which aimed to realise his music as if it had been created for an electronic studio album created in 1979.
While Rob's work has also been orchestrated by other VGM concerts for medleys, Rob was keen to revisit his old stuff in a full-blooded, serious manner. His commitment to orchestral music is clear, and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Abertay.
Following his commission for the game soundtrack for a mobile game for Hull College, the 8-Bit Symphony concert that had been looking for a home for 20 years, finally found one thanks to their sponsorship.
So, Rob has been working on 8-Bit Symphony as a musical director, arranger and orchestrator and is looking forward to seeing where these brand-new fantastic scores take us.
Graduating from college in Hull in the 1960s, Rob spent his formative years as a gigging musician in a succession of rock bands playing in the North-East, and often further afield.
A friendship with fellow musician Steve Daggett (later of Lindesfarne) led Rob to the studio and a fascination with electronic studio gear and music production. This interest quickly extended into home computers, and when the Commodore 64 appeared with its legendary "SID" sound chip, Rob knew he had to have one.
Almost his first instinct was to use it to make an honest bob, so he set to work writing educational programmes, only to find the market was not really in the mood. However, he had also started to program tunes into the computer (starting with "The Blue Danube": it was very common for composers to experiment with classical music to test the waters).
In the 1983-1984 period, there was a real goldrush in personal computers in the UK, and chance contacts led Rob to start working on a game for a local company. Unfortunately, this was never released - but Rob utilised the music he had started to write for that game and packaged it up with some more demos to pitch for music programming jobs.
His first contracts were Mastertronic's "Action Biker (with Clumsy Colin)" and Incentive's "Confuzion". Both of these were well reviewed. His real breakthrough piece was "Thing on a Spring", an original composition full of spring noises, bounce and percussion that was simply mind-blowing to the listeners.
This was followed by the theme from "Monty on the Run", initially inspired by "Devil's Galop". Taken in a completely new direction, it offered manic violin playing, Simmonds drums, a guitar solo, and a section at the end seemingly designed to kill string players. After Monty on the Run hit the market, Rob never had to actively look for work again, and he became a rock star to a certain impessionable youth.
After an extraordinary period of creative growth from 1985 to 1988 and tiring of the freelance life, Rob was offered a chance to join Electronic Arts: at that time, a new and vibrant company with a fresh outlook and new ambitions. The chance to expand his musical horizons and explore the outer limits of music interactivity gave Rob a fresh outlook on music, and his work started appearing on consoles and PCs. In 1997 he was promoted to a management job to reflect the change in focus from composing music to licencing it.
Tiring of corporate life and missing the UK, Rob came back in 2001 and kept himself busy with gigs and music, as well as other occasional jobs, even playing piano on the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry!
In 1998, Rob contributed some tracks to the first commercially released CD of Commodore 64 music remixed in studios: "Back in Time", from Chris Abbott's newly established record label "C64Audio.com". Rob's involvement continued over the next twenty years with live events, concerts and CD contributions, culminating in his participation in 8-Bit Symphony.
With classical and jazz always looming large in his background, the opportunity soon came to realise his own tracks with orchestral sounds. Starting with his own arrangement of "Kentlla" in the 90s, he teamed up with US Musician Steven Scherer in 2000 to score three of his tracks for C64Audio.com ("WAR", "Kentilla" and "Food Feud").
In 2005 he was given the chance to orchestrate one of his pieces for the "Play" concert attached to the 2005 Games Development Conference in Leipzig. Orchestrating "International Karate", he scored it using as wide a variety of sonic palette as he could, to great effect. An improved and unedited version of this orchestration kicks off the second half of the concert.
In 2017, a Kickstarter "Project Hubbard" successfully funded to produce his official biography/reference manual, to support his brief return to C64 composing to create new Commodore 64 music, and to produce his first studio album of "premixes" - a concept album called "Hubbard'80" which aimed to realise his music as if it had been created for an electronic studio album created in 1979.
While Rob's work has also been orchestrated by other VGM concerts for medleys, Rob was keen to revisit his old stuff in a full-blooded, serious manner. His commitment to orchestral music is clear, and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Abertay.
Following his commission for the game soundtrack for a mobile game for Hull College, the 8-Bit Symphony concert that had been looking for a home for 20 years, finally found one thanks to their sponsorship.
So, Rob has been working on 8-Bit Symphony as a musical director, arranger and orchestrator and is looking forward to seeing where these brand-new fantastic scores take us.