Merregnon Studios


Merregnon Studios is a company based in Dresden, Germany, founded by Thomas Böcker. It produces concerts of orchestral video game music, under the name Symphonic Game Music Concerts and other variants of the Symphonic brand, and markets recordings and albums of the concerts.

History

Merregnon Studios was founded in 1999 by Thomas Böcker. Having spent time in Japan and as a lifelong fan of video game music, Böcker sought to bring orchestral video game music concerts to Europe and produce storytelling arrangements and scores based on video game material. The first example of his vision came with the first volume in the Merregnon CD series in 2000.
Since 1999, Böcker had been working in the games industry as producer, director and advisor for a variety of soundtracks. His role as executive producer and project director of the Merregnon albums provided him with many contacts to conductors, orchestras and composers from around the world, and he began to develop the concept of a new series of video game music orchestra concerts, Inspired by game concerts from Japan, the Orchestral Game Music Concerts from the 1990s in particular, he produced the first concert event of its kind outside Japan. To attract as many people from the target audience as possible, the concert was to be scheduled alongside an established event connected to the game industry. He proposed his idea to the Leipzig Trade Fair in 2002, which agreed to hold what was called the Symphonic Game Music Concert during the GC: Games Convention, the first trade fair for video games in Europe.
The Symphonic Game Music Concerts were successful, and marked the beginning of one of the longest running video game concert series of all time. Jonne Valtonen joined as an exclusive contract artist for the studio through his work on the concert series.
After the cancellation of Symphonic Game Music Concert at the Leipzig Trade Fair, the team began to produce a new series of concerts titled Symphonic in association with the WDR in Cologne, a yearly event with themed video game orchestra concerts built on classical music values blended with modern compositions. Since the first event in 2008, Symphonic Shades, the Symphonic series has gone on to spawn four additional events. All of Merregnon Studios's productions have been officially sanctioned and supported by the game developer and composers featured in the event, including Square Enix, Nintendo, and Nobuo Uematsu.
Merregnon Studios has produced and directed numerous orchestral video game music recordings and albums. In 2000, the studio debuted with the Merregnon release, an original concept album with contributions from various video game composers from around the world such as Yuzo Koshiro and Chris Hülsbeck to create a melodic story told entirely through music. The album received a follow-up in 2004. The studio coordinated the recording of Masashi's Hamauzu's debut album Vielen Dank in 2007. In 2008, they coordinated recordings and provided the orchestration for SEGA's World Club Champion Football. That same year, they also coordinated recordings of the drammatica -The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura- album published by Square Enix.
In addition to producing albums and orchestra recordings for other companies, Merregnon Studios had their own concerts released on CD, with Symphonic Fantasies being published by Decca in Europe and Square Enix in Japan, while Symphonic Odysseys saw a release from Dog Ear Records, Nobuo Uematsu's own production company.

Concerts

Symphonic Game Music Concert series

The Symphonic Game Music Concerts are a series of award-winning, annual German video game music concerts initiated in 2003, notable for being the longest running and the first of their kind outside Japan. They are produced by Thomas Böcker and performed by various orchestras conducted by Andy Brick, Arnie Roth, and Niklas Willén.

Symphonic series

Symphonic Shades

In late 2007, Thomas Böcker announced that he was producing Symphonic Shades, a concert exclusively dedicated to the music of German game composer Chris Hülsbeck, taking place on 23 August 2008. Tickets for it were sold out after six days, prompting the producers to schedule a second concert that would be performed to another sold-out audience at 11 p.m. on the same day of the Symphonic Shades world premiere. The event marked the first live radio broadcast of a video game music concert.

Symphonic Fantasies

In February 2008, Thomas Böcker mentioned some considerations about a continuation of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series in Cologne. The plans were later confirmed by Winfried Fechner who announced Symphonic Fantasies, a video game music concert that took place in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall on 12 September 2009. Tickets for the event sold out quickly, necessitating a second concert at the König-Pilsener-Arena in Oberhausen, on 11 September 2009. In addition to the live performances, the concert saw a radio broadcast on WDR4 and, for the first time, enabled viewers world-wide to experience the event via live video streaming. A CD edited and mixed at the WDR Studios and mastered at Abbey Road Studios was released in Japan on 15 September 2010 by Square Enix and in Germany on 17 September 2010 by the Universal Music Group label Decca Records. The CD entered the Media Control Charts Germany for sales in September 2010 at position No. 13.

Symphonic Legends

Symphonic Fantasies was met with considerable praise and feedback from attendants, causing the announcement of another Symphonic Game Music Concert entitled Symphonic Legends. Taking place in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall on 23 September 2010, the complete concert was conducted by Niklas Willén for the first time, whereas Jonne Valtonen again served as main arranger and as composer of the opening piece called "Fanfare for the Common 8-bit Hero". Additional music was contributed by Roger Wanamo and guest arrangers Shiro Hamaguchi, Hayato Matsuo, Masashi Hamauzu and Torsten Rasch. The event focused on music from Nintendo and featured the titles Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Galaxy, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid, F-Zero, StarFox, Pikmin and The Legend of Zelda. Tickets for Symphonic Legends sold out on 19 March 2010.
In addition to the performance, the concert saw a live radio broadcast on WDR4 in 5.1 surround sound, a world-wide live audio streaming and live video streaming, available in Germany.

Symphonic Odysseys

On 9 July 2011, the WDR Radio Orchestra presented Symphonic Odysseys at the Philharmonic Hall in Cologne. The concert exclusively paid homage to the work of composer Nobuo Uematsu.
Tickets went on sale 1 December 2010 and sold out within 12 hours, prompting the producers to announce a second concert to be performed at 3 p.m. on the same day. With both concerts sold out, Symphonic Odysseys marked the biggest video game music event in Germany so far.

Final Symphony

Chamber music and school concerts

The Chamber Music Game Concerts performed by a string ensemble and the school concerts Heroes of our Imagination and Super Mario Galaxy – A Musical Adventure are three subseries of events also produced by Thomas Böcker.
The free of charge First Chamber Music Game Concert in 2005 was held as part of the gaming tournament GC-Cup at the Augustusplatz in Leipzig, while the latter two took place in 2006, alongside a GC – Games Convention press conference event and the historical exhibition Nintendo – Vom Kartenspiel zum Game Boy of the Landesmuseum Koblenz.
The four school concerts Heroes of Imagination in 2006 were intended to show differences and similarities between classical music and game music and to make orchestra concerts more accessible to a younger audience. They were supported by Nintendo, Square Enix and Sega. In January 2010, five additional school concerts were performed by the same orchestra. The series was entitled Super Mario Galaxy – A Musical Adventure and was the spiritual successor to the well-received Heroes of Imagination events. Modeled after and acting as a modern-day Peter and the Wolf, the musical segments of the concerts were interspersed with narrations of the storyline of Super Mario Galaxy, with the performances having been officially licensed and sponsored by Nintendo.

Discography

Awards