Final Fantasy Concert Series Coming to the States
On February 19th in Chicago, Illinois, a concert series titled "Dear Friends" will kick off a U.S. tour. The music? Music from the Final Fantasy series performed by orchestra. From the press release: "The first FINAL FANTASY concert in the U.S. brought fans from far and wide together in Los Angeles to share in an unforgettable musical experience," said Ichiro Otobe, president and COO of Square Enix, Inc. "We are pleased to announce that, due to the overwhelmingly positive response, a North American tour will soon bring the emotionally moving and powerful scores to fans across the country." This is personally very exciting for me. See you there!
Incidentally, if you read the article, you would know that FINAL FANTASY must be capitalized every single time that you say FINAL FANTASY. sheesh
feh. stuff.
The compositions in many of the FF games are really top-notch; there are a few off-beat tunes (think the Chochobo scenes) but for the most part it isn't your dime-a-minute loop-based stuff but moving, uplifting, really cinematic kind of music. Performance by a full orchestra? Oh yeah, I'll even buy that.
Here's a link to more information about the first concert in LA earlier this year.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
According to a press release regarding the concert in Los Angeles, Uemastu "creat[ed] the score for the two hour concert... [f]eaturing a full orchestra and a 32-person choir."
Or, you can ask Uematsu at his Square-Enix homepage.