Bittersweet Symphony
Which is why it’s surprising to see T-shirt clad 20-somethings rubbing elbows with polo-shirt wearing grandparents in a 5,000-person strong National Symphony audience at the Vienna, Va. Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. They’re here to see Play: A Video Game Symphony, a concert that eschews the common symphonic fare of Bach, Mahler and Strauss for pieces by the likes Square’s Uematsu, Nintendo’s Kondo and Konami’s Gregson-Williams. While parts of the audience have never played a game and other parts have never heard a live symphony, they’ve all gathered together to experience another world without fully leaving the comfort of the one they know.
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