Polygon: How Civilization 4’s Christopher Tin became the first game composer to win a Grammy

[The_J]

Polygon has today posted an article about our most beloved composer, titled "How Civilization 4’s Christopher Tin became the first game composer to win a Grammy".
In the interview, the journalist is asking Christopher Tin about how he was inspired by Civ4's opening menu, that orchestrating music for video games was still somthing rather new back in the day, and how the technological landscape change with the Wii and iPhone has transformed gaming.
For some more interesting details check the article here: https://www.polygon.com/24206239/civilization-4-wins-grammy-baba-yetu

 

[Quintillus]

Another very interesting Christopher Tin interview! The paragraph most likely to interest Civ fans:

I’m a very visual person, and so much of “Baba Yetu” was inspired by the visual assets that Firaxis gave me. Specifically, they sent me an early rendering of the main menu screen, which was a video loop of the earth as seen from outer space. It was a shot of North Africa, and every 30 seconds or so the sun would rise over the horizon. It was beautiful and serene, and almost instantaneously the opening notes of the piece started playing in my head.

Firaxis actually asked me to compose something that was a fusion between African gospel vocals, orchestra, and big cinematic percussion, so the overall sound world was already established from the start. I decided I wanted the music to take a more joyous tone, as that was already more idiomatic to African choral music.

We all know that the music complements the main menu visuals perfectly, but I did not realize that Firaxis asked for that fusion style that Baba Yetu fits right in to.

I found it just as interesting that Tin wrote a new ending to Turandot this year. I knew that Turandot had a run in Wilmington, Delaware this year, but hadn't heard about his run of it in DC. It turns out that both the Wilmington and Washington ones have new endings, as does a third run in Germany - it's really the year for new Turandot endings. It sounds like Tin's takes the cake though, and from what I heard the Delaware one wasn't a slouch, either.

I wonder if he will have another run with it, either in Washington at a future date or elsewhere? I'm really not the opera person in the family, but if Christopher Tin is writing opera endings with rave reviews, I might be persuaded to make an exception.

 

[danjuno]

He's working in the DC area? Sweet!