Dear Friends: Final Fantasy Concert Interview

The music of Final Fantasy has become just as popular as the ongoing video games themselves. Much of this is due to composer Nobuo Uematsu's sweeping scores, which incorporate a diverse range of musical styles. In fact, his music is so revered within the gaming community that fans flocked to Japan the first time that the scores were performed live with a full orchestra in 2002. So great was the reception that a six-city tour of Japan followed shortly. Yet global fans clamored for more live engagements, which resulted in 2004's historic U.S. premiere of the music of Final Fantasy, which took place during the annual E3 convention.

Now, almost a year later the music of Nobuo is returning to the United States for a string of select live performances headed up by venerable Music Director/Conductor Arnie Roth. Based out of Chicago, Roth is the Music Director/Conductor of the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra, as well as lending his considerable musical skills to a wide variety of popular musicians ranging from Mannheim Steamroller to Andrea Bocelli, and conducting numerous symphonies including the London Symphony Orchestra, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, and others. Roth will be tackling the music of Final Fantasy in Chicago on Saturday February 19th, then again in San Francisco during the annual GDC Convention on March 7th.

We caught up with Roth to discuss how he became involved in the project and what exactly goes into bringing the music of a world renowned video game to life via a full-scale symphony orchestra.

IGN Music: How did you come to get involved with the whole Dear Friends symphonic endeavor?

Arnie Roth: Well there's a certain amount of circumstance involved. I've been the music director and conductor for many different artists, as well as the Chicagoland Pops and my company also contracts musicians for a lot of different tours and performances in Chicago, all over the United States, as well as the world, actually. We contract musicians for Rod Stewart, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, and Pavarotti. It was through my involvement with Pavarotti that I ran into Jason Paul. He worked on the Pavarotti concerts in a tour manager/stage manager position. He was the one who told me about his involvement in this show, Final Fantasy. Conversations ensued and essentially since I was Music Director and Conductor of the Chicagoland Pops and we were looking for a couple of other events for this year, besides our subscription