FINAL FANTASY from 8-bit to Symphony Hall

David Friend Recital Hall, 921 Boylston ST, Boston, MA USA

On Friday, November 12 at 2:00 PM Berklee Global Initiatives welcomes award-winning artists Arnie Roth and Eric Roth from AWR Music Productions for a unique session that will delve deeply into the world of scoring for video games and bringing those scores to life with live orchestras. The session will be kicked off with a discussion led by award-winning pianist and composer Chris Opperman (`00) with the Roths about the production of the FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Orchestra tour and performance, and digging into how they bring video game scores to the live concert experience.

This event is developed in partnership with the Berklee Esports, Video Game Music Club, Video Game Music OST, and Berklee XR. Representatives from these clubs will lead a Q&A session with Berklee students covering a range of topics related to scoring for video games, orchestration and the live performance experience

Arnie Roth is a GRAMMY Award-winning artist known for his work with world renowned artists including Andrea Bocelli, Diana Ross, Il Divo, Jewel, Josh Groban, Charlotte Church, Patrick Stewart, Peter Cetera, Mannheim Steamroller, Pat Benatar and Dennis DeYoung. Mr. Roth has conducted most of the world’s greatest orchestra, including the London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, Kansai Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Czech National Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony. He is well known in the world of video game music for his work with legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu and SQUARE ENIX LTD as Music Director, Producer and Conductor of “Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY,” “Dear Friends: music from FINAL FANTASY,” “More Friends: music from FINAL FANTASY,” “VOICES: music from FINAL FANTASY.” He was chosen to conduct a series of symphonic concerts based on the music themes of various videogame series in Cologne with WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, including Symphonic Fantasies, Symphonic Shades, and Symphonic Odysseys. Mr. Roth is equally at home in the areas of film and composition and was the winner of the Best Score Award at the 2003 DVD Premier Awards and nominated for an Emmy for his original song “Shine” from the Mattel movie “Barbie in The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” Roth has produced dozens of best-selling CDs on such labels as American Gramaphone, JVC, Mattel, Warner Bros., Sony, Koch, Razor & Tie, AWR Records, and SQUARE ENIX.

Eric Roth is known for an original and expressive musical personality, recognized internationally as a composer/conductor, orchestrator/arranger and producer of concerts and recordings. Eric is the music director and chief arranger for A New World: intimate music from FINAL FANTASY, the chamber ensemble concert production by AWR Music Productions and Square Enix, the video game developer. The production has performed on four continents since 2014 with two acclaimed full-length recordings. He’s also the associate music director and an orchestrator/arranger for Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY, the global live orchestral performance phenomenon and recording artist. His orchestrations and arrangements have been performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Houston Symphony, Seattle Symphony and many other ensembles. Eric was the conductor of the orchestra for ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s historic 2019 Strings Attached Tour, performing dozens of monumental multimedia shows throughout the United States and Canada. 2020 saw the incredible sold-out premiere performances of Undertale LIVE, for which Eric was the music director and primary arranger/orchestrator, as well as the groundbreaking recording he produced. During 2020, Eric’s arrangements for viola soloist Clara Takarabe were essential to her work on Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Neurology Telemusic Program in Chicago. Also in 2020, guitar virtuoso Sam Griffin and ER collaborated on the colossal solo guitar audio release The RPG National Anthem Variations, a theme and variations based on the Main Theme of the original FINAL FANTASY game by Nobuo Uematsu. In 2018, the OPENWORLD video game chamber music production premiered at the MomoCon convention in Atlanta; Eric is the music director and chief arranger for OPENWORLD. In 2016, the Pat Benatar/Neil Giraldo orchestra production launched with the Pittsburgh Symphony. Eric is the primary arranger and orchestrator for this project. In 2011 he was the orchestrator and Associate Producer for Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Symphony and also for 2013’s follow-up recording.