Pics From Carnegie

Pics from my night at Carnegie!

Here we are on stage. From left to right, it's Meghan Asha (technology columnist), me (just some dude), Alex Rigopulos (created Guitar Hero and Rock Band), Melissa auf Der Maur (bassist for Hole, Smashing Pumpkins), Grandmaster Flash (founding father of hip hop) and Pete Wentz (bassist of Fall Out Boy).

And here we are before the concert, looking like a badass posse.

The evening was capped off with a demonstration of Rock Band: Beatles. Here you can see me channeling my inner Paul, playing a plastic Hofner bass. Now I can say I've 'played Carnegie'.

The afterparty. Here I am with Melissa auf Der Maur and Jimmy Zankel (he underwrote the event, and his family built Zankel Hall, one of the three concert spaces at Carnegie).

Photos by Craig Chesek.

Carnegie Hall, Baba Yetu Music Video, The Beatles, And Me

Well, I just had pretty much the most fun night of my entire life.

I got invited to speak on a panel at Carnegie Hall last night. The subject was video games and music--a topic that I know a little bit about. It was moderated by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, and the other panelists were Alex Rigopulos (CEO and founder of Harmonix), Grandmaster Flash (father of hip-hop), Melissa auf Der Maur (Smashing Pumpkins, Hole), and Meghan Asha (technology blogger and media personality). We had a fun, sometimes crass, and occasionally enlightening conversation about the video game industry, and the present and future of music.

I also got to debut the brand new music video of Baba Yetu to the sold-out crowd. The video is a collection of footage taken from the Civ games, and expertly cut together by director Brooke Hanson. It's terrific, and very moving--very much in the spirit of the Civilization games. I'll post it here soon.

And to cap off the panel, we did a live demonstration of Rock Band: Beatles for the audience. I played bass (and no, I did not play it left handed, like Paul did). Since I love Rock Band, and the Beatles are my favorite rock band, that made the evening complete. And besides, it's every musician's dream to play Carnegie Hall, right? Well, I finally did... granted, it was on a plastic bass with little colored buttons, but whatever.

I have to give thanks to the Carnegie organization for doing an amazing job of taking care of me, and handling every detail. It was just a first class experience from beginning to end.

I'll post pics later this week... and sometime next week, I'll also post the video!

The Kids Are Alright!

Earlier this year, Ms. Shannon Jones of Trinity Springs Middle School wrote me an email, and told me that her choir was learning Baba Yetu. This was followed by a bunch of emails from the students in the choir, asking me if I was going to come out and hear the performance! Unfortunately I couldn't make it out to Texas, but just for fun I put together a little video to say hi to the choir:

I think it went over well!

In any case, the choir sent me a DVD of the performance, which was much appreciated; most choirs don't even tell me they're performing my music--I just stumble across their performances on YouTube (even the big professional ones don't warn me in advance!). I'd honestly go to more of these performances if I could--especially the ones in Los Angeles.

At any rate, the kids of Trinity Springs did a GREAT job with the song. Hopefully someone over there will figure out how to post it to YouTube someday, but in the meantime, if any of the choir members from TSMS are reading this, BRAVO!!! :) You guys were a delight to watch, and you all sounded great--from the chorus, to the excellent soloist, to the orchestra. And great job putting it all together, Ms. Jones!

Hope you're all having a great summer vacation! :)

Metropol Orkest: Utrecht, Holland

Just stumbled across this! It's a Portuguese blog post, written about a Dutch orchestra that's playing a certain Swahili song written by a Chinese-American composer (me).

I really have no idea what it's saying, but I believe it's a performance by the Metropol Orchestra of Utrecht, Holland, and I believe they recently did a concert of video game music where Baba Yetu was the encore. This was reported to me by a friend who happened to be there, but until I stumbled across this blog post, I never knew footage of the concert existed.

I must say, it's pretty rockin'. The drum kit is a great addition. Between this rendition, and the slow gospel version done by the Angel City Chorale, I'm beginning to think that there's a lot more classical crossover/popera/fusion potential for the song that I'm not realizing.

Angel City Chorale: "One World Many Voices"

The Angel City Chorale performed 'Baba Yetu' tonight in their One World Many Voices concert--a full evening of music from around the world. At the invitation of the choir, I attended the concert, held at the Wilshire United Methodist Church in Los Angeles.

Their rendition of 'Baba Yetu' was excellent! They turned it into a slow gospel number... totally unexpected, but really effective. It made me think that there's a lot of potential for releasing such an arrangement/recording of the song. (Special nod to the tenor soloist Vini Marques, who did a great job as well.)

As for the rest of the program, it was a very diverse set list, including songs from Bulgaria, Argentina, Russia, Mongolia... really, it was right up my alley. Kudos to Sue Fink, the Artistic Director of the choir, for such challenging and diverse programming!

They're doing one more performance tomorrow night, Sunday June 7th, at 7:00 PM. Los Angeles locals should consider checking them out--they're quite an impressive group. Click here for more info.

Hopefully I'll get to work with them some more, perhaps on some future choral works--perhaps even some of the songs on Calling All Dawns.

GameMusic4All Review of GSPO Pops Orchestra

GameMusic4All.com did a review of the Golden State Pops Orchestra concert a few weeks, in which I conducted. Quoth the reviewer, Anthony Ruybalid:

I have never played Civ IV before (and probably never will) but composer Christopher Tin really makes some phenomenal music which can even be enjoyed completely outside of the context of the game.

Thanks to Anthony (whom I got to meet at Video Games Live yesterday) for the review!

Video Games Live: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles

Another Video Games Live concert last night. The shot below is taken right before the encore. In the old days, kids waved their lighters around. In this day and age, they wave their cell phones, PSPs, Nintendo DS's, iPhones, etc.

Did the usual Meet-And-Greet afterwards as well--signing autographs (along with my fellow composers) for the gamer fans. Always great to interact with them!

Originalsoundversion.com Writeup

Jayson Napolitano of pop-culture blog Original Sound Version has a writeup of the Golden State Pops Orchestra concert up. Check it out!

(He also uses some of the pics that I snapped during the concert rehearsals.)

Golden State Pops Orchestra: Concert

Backstage video from the concert last night!

Thanks to Steven Allen Fox, Linda Grimes and Victor Pesavento of the Golden State Pops Orchestra for the wonderful opportunity!

Golden State Pops Orchestra (Second Rehearsal)

Another rehearsal with the Golden State Pops Orchestra last night. This time I got up on the platform and conducted myself!

Conducting is a great love of mine. I was never able to study it as much as I wanted to during college and conservatory, but any chance I got I snuck into conducting classes.

My greatest skills were always as a composer, but I have to say that conducting very closely rivals the joy I get from writing music. To be perfectly self-critical, though, early on I realized I had bigger gaps in raw ability as a conductor than as a composer, and so that's partly what guided me down my composition path. For one thing, I'm not particularly good at picking tempos out of mid-air. I get excited on the podium, and typically that means the music gets played a tad faster than it should be. It's something I could work on, though, should someday I start to take conducting more seriously. Where I did always excel in class, however, was my ability to convey the musicality of a piece. So I suppose if there's any sort of consolation to be had, the spirit is there... the technique is just a little raw at the moment.

Golden State Pops Orchestra (First Rehearsal)

I'll be conducting the Golden State Pops Orchestra in a performance of Baba Yetu on May 16th, 2009 at the Warner Grand Theatre. It's been awhile since I've been up on the podium, so I'm definitely looking forward to the experience.

The orchestra sounded great at the first rehearsal (held at El Segundo High School, in case you're wondering why there are lockers in the background). Next week we'll be adding the choir, so that will be the true test.

Maestro Steven Allen Fox is leading this first rehearsal. Just looking at the picture makes me think I really need to get a haircut.

Live In Kalamazoo, Michigan...By Way Of My Living Room

My friends Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall are trying something new. During this Friday's Video Games Live concert in Kalamazoo, Michigan, they're going to try to do a live Skype broadcast with yours truly after the performance of the Civilization IV Medley. So in other words, I'll be sitting in front of my laptop in my living room watching the concert, and afterwards they'll be projecting my image in front of the audience while asking me questions. It should be a real hoot.

Game Developer's Conference 2008 Collected Notes

I spent all of last week at the Game Developer's Conference, the annual meeting of the minds for the video game industry. It's a fun (but exhausting) week, and this was my third year attending. At last year's conference, I was nominated for a GANG Award for "Baba Yetu" (ultimately wound up winning two awards, actually) and I spent the entire conference trying to generate some sort of interest in my music because of that. This year, already being a somewhat familiar face, and being repped for video games by Soundelux DMG, I had a number of meetings set up for me even before I attended the conference, with companies like Sony, Disney and Atari.

Since we're now onto my third year of being a part of the video game community, I have to admit that I'm starting to feel really at home amongst the other composers there. A big part of that is because of Video Games Live. As usual, VGL did a concert at the end of the conference (at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, with the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra and Choir--presumably a pickup band), and as usual, all the composers spent two hours afterwards signing autographs and meeting with fans. It's through all these Meet-And-Greets, lectures at GDC, and other events, though, that I'm really starting to get chummy with a lot of the other game composers. They're all really nice, genuine guys--low on ego, high on creativity...a genuine pleasure to know! I'm proud to call myself one of them.

As usual I bumped into Gerard Marino, of God Of War fame. He won the Rookie Of The Year award the year before I did. Laurie Robinson (Advent Rising) and I hung out again....she and her husband Emmanuel Fratianni are familiar faces from all the VGL concerts. Mike Reagan (God Of War, Conan) and his wife Savina Ciamarella were everywhere; Savina in particular has been a saving grace to the video game community because of her work in getting the American Federation of Musicians to have a contract for video game scores.

I got a chance to talk with Marty O'Donnell a bit--you probably know him from his beautiful Halo music, based on Gregorian chants. And then there were the Blizzard guys...Russell Brower and Jason Hayes. Jason and I have been trying to get lunch for ages now; he's working on an album as well, and I want to know more about it. I pointed out to him once that, because of his World of Warcraft music, day in and day out, he's probably the most heard single composer in the history of the world. Truly.

Last week's VGL concert featured a few new segments. Richard Jacques (Headhunter) came out and played a jazz piano arrangement of the music to Outrun that sizzled. And of course, my buddy Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist (pictured here) played medleys from Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross and Super Mario Brothers. John Debney, primarily a film composer (Passion Of The Christ, Sin City), came out and conducted his music from Lair. It was great meeting him after the concert, as I think he does great work.

I was also hanging out with Will Littlejohn and Kyle Johnsons of the Guitar Hero camp afterwards....my game designer friend Soren Johnson (Civilization IV, Spore) sat next to them at the Meet-And-Greet. Kyle turned to us and said "You know what's funny is that during our lunch hour, we all put Guitar Hero away and play Civ IV!" To which Soren replied, "That's funny because during our lunch breaks we used to put Civ IV away and play Guitar Hero!" That little exchange made my day.

Most importantly, however, I have to give kudos to Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall for everything they've done for game composers. Really, I can't stress this enough: those guys are two personal heroes of mine. Not only did they found GANG and work tirelessly to build this wonderfully friendly community, but they also created the Video Games Live concerts and have been instrumental in bringing game composers out from behind the scenes....myself included. All the happy memories I have of last week's conference were due to the work of these two. I'll say it again: those two are my heroes.

Video Games Live, Nokia Theatre LA Live

Last night was another Video Games Live show--this time at the brand new 7000+ seat arena in downtown LA, the Nokia Theatre. My Civilization IV music was performed once more, and I was finally able to attend again. (Many recent and near future performances are in faraway cities: Rio De Janeiro, Buffalo, Sao Paulo, and London....and I REALLY wish I could attend the London concert, as it's being played at the Royal Festival Hall with members of the Philharmonia orchestra.)

After the concert we did our usual bit of signing autographs for several hours. In this picture I'm sitting between Will Littlejohn (Guitar Hero) and Steven Harwood (Brothers In Arms). I always really enjoy these Meet-And-Greets--it's nice to talk to young music fans, and often their parents as well. (Rather amusingly, my music seems to be quite popular among the mothers that get dragged to these concerts by their kids.)

(Oh, and seeing this picture makes me realize that it's time for a haircut.)

Kennedy Center Photos

I've been incredibly blessed in having Video Games Live take my music to some pretty distinguished venues.



Two months ago I had the pleasure of hearing the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington Master Chorale perform 'Baba Yetu' and 'Coronation' at the Kennedy Center. Both nights were sold out, and warmly received by both fans and critics alike. The Washington Post referred to my music as 'sophisticated'...not going to argue with that.

After the concert I participated in the Meet-And-Greet, and spent a good hour or so signing autographs for all those in attendance. To those Baba Yetu fans that I met, thank you for all your encouraging words. Your support is a constant reminder as to why I started writing music in the first place.