ABOUT THE 8-BIT SYMPHONY TEAM
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We're a group of fans and composers who loved the music of the games and demos we met in the 1980s: the golden age of home microcomputers, both 8- and 16-bit.
Our love of these tunes made us remix them, over a period of 20 years. We were convinced that they were musically great, and that given a chance to prove it, could be put up against the best of modern soundtracks without apology. But the big holy grail of orchestral performance largely eluded us, while the attention went to performances of Mario, Zelda, Tetris, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider and more modern games (although Chris Huelsbeck did quite well!). There's nothing wrong with this. Those games have fans too. But it seemed unfair that we couldn't have that for ourselves. So, we decided to do it ourselves, on a shoestring and with much volunteer help from a list of people too long to count. Hull Philharmonic orchestra were excited to do something new, the 1200-capacity Hull City Hall was just waiting for us, and we had enough world-class scores for a concert, thanks to the efforts of the team over a three year period. So, here we are. About to have our own concert, as the first step to promoting this music far and wide. It's melody-driven, dynamic and fantastic. It's built for concert halls. And we're just thrilled we got this far. But... This concert is dedicated to two composers we have lost to the scourge of lung cancer: Ben Daglish (1966-2018) and Richard Joseph (1953-2007). Sadly Ben, having supported the concert from its earliest days and co-arranged three of the tracks, didn't make it to see his pieces performed. Richard, as a musician to his bones would have also been proud. Additionally we are honouring Anthony Lees, fellow composer of "The Last Ninja" with Ben, who was tragically killed in an accident in 2016. |