Sound Byte: Meet the Composer - Christopher Tin
We speak to Grammy Award-winning composer Christopher Tin about his music, his process, and his historic Grammy win.
When Christopher Tin walked onstage to accept his Grammy on February 13--the first-ever win and nomination for a piece of music composed for a video game--the video game music community swelled with pride. After all, doesn't this mean that the "mainstream" finally took notice of video game music? While Christopher did mention in his acceptance speech that the award-winning song "Baba Yetu" was originally composed for the 2005 video game Civilization IV, the song wasn't nominated until December of last year, along with Christopher's first album, Calling All Dawns. If you haven't heard the album yet, I highly suggest you do so by visiting Christopher's site here. The album features more than 200 musicians from around the world, singing poems and prayers in 12 different languages.
Civilization IV came out almost six years ago, and since then the song has been a part of Tommy Tallarico's Video Games Live concert tour. The lyrics to "Baba Yetu" are a Swahili version of the Lord's Prayer, and the song has been performed almost 1,000 times in live concerts. While Christopher has seen success in composing for video games, he has done a wide variety of work in the realms of television, movies, and commercials.
During the week of the Game Developers Conference, I had the opportunity to meet up with Christopher and talk about his music, his background, and how he approaches his work. To find out more, watch the interview below!
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Sound Byte is GameSpot's game music blog, which covers every aspect of music in games, including interviews with top game music composers and discussions of new or classic game soundtracks. Have a question or suggestion? Leave us a comment below or e-mail us at soundbyte@gamespot.com. For a list of previous Sound Byte features, click here. Follow us on Twitter! @gs_soundbyte.
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