Happy Halloween! Anyone dressed as a video game character? Or better yet, anyone playing any scary games?

Believe it or not, I’m actually spending a lot of today listening to scary video game soundtracks. I’ve essentially got this haunted house of Halloween decorations, and I’m using game music to set the mood. There’s a lot of Fatal Frame, Resident Evil, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Assassin’s Creed… and Castlevania. I figured something from the latter would be appropriate for tonight, so enjoy Video Games Live’s performance of Castlevania music!

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I’m starting to run out of concerts to show you all! …or at least, I can’t seem to find much more. Luckily, the rare occasions I find a symphony concert for you all to enjoy, it’s usually a good one I stumble across.

This week, Arnie Roth takes the podium for the Play! Symphony’s Stockholm performance last year. It’s the theme to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by Jeremy Soule. I’ve not played the game - though I’ve got at least one or two friends who absolutely love the game - so this is the first time I’m getting to hear the score. I must say… I need to play more games. I’m missing out on some great soundtracks.

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I grew up on piano and guitar. I’ve played both since I was about five, as opposed to my woodwind background which began when I was ten. Of course, if the school had an orchestra program, I’d probably have opted to stick with strings. Probably cello or something.

This week’s concert is from the 2008 Ai-Kon anime convention in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A string quartet plus piano group known as Quintessence shows off what years of string instruction can give you. Now, those of you lucky enough to have been in Canada at the time got to see the whole show. Tonight, unfortunately, you’re just getting a look at their Super Mario Bros. arrangement. Still, it’s five minutes of fun, so enjoy!

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This week, we’ll listen to the The Big Band Of Rogues perform the ending theme to Super Mario Bros. 3, as performed at the Nihon Seinenkan Hall back on September 14th, 2003. It’s not the greatest jazz band in the world, but I’ll bet if any of them are gamers, they’re having a ton of fun.

That said, there are no gamers in that saxophone section. I think I’ve seen drying paint that’s more exciting to watch. Keep that in mind, you current or aspiring musicians - the performance is just an important as the ability to play a piece!

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Short concert this week. Yasunori Mitsuda’s score for Chrono Cross was among the best for any PlayStation game, and any game of its time. I’m sure many of you loved the game, loved the music, but never really got a chance to just listen to it.

The video above is the Eminence Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the intro piece, “Time’s Scar,” at the beginning of the game. The original guitar solo was performed by Tomohiko Kira, though Zane Banks does a pretty good job taking over for the Eminence edition. That’s James Fortune on the flute - unfortunately drowned out a little bit - followed by Hiroaki Yura on Violin, with Philip Chu conducting.

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It’s baseball season! We’ll go with Super Mario tunes for the next couple of weeks of concerts, leading up to the launch of Mario Super Sluggers. Whoa. Forgot that was coming, didn’t you?

Mario themes are super popular with percussion ensembles for that non-challenging, novelty piece during a percussion ensemble concert. As such, it was not hard at all to find something to pick for this week. I decided to go with an April 15, 2007 performance by the Rollins College Percussion Ensemble - I figured better instruments, more experienced players, and hopefully more mature musicians than the high school ensemble videos out there.

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We didn’t get anything Zelda last week, so I’ll give you a little bit tonight. This Friday Night Concert concert features what looks like a collegiate piano recital performing a medley of tunes from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The arrangement was done by Duncan Blickenstaff.

Enjoy!

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For those who didn’t realize, E3 is coming up fast. In fact, some companies have already begun holding private events ahead of the actual E3 Summit, starting Tuesday. For this week’s concert, we’ll take a trip back to E3 2005, when DJ David Hollands took the upcoming Electroplankton game and showed off the DS’s ability to create art.

The clip above is merely an introduction by good ol’ Reggie and a preview clip featuring David. You can watch the actual Electroplankton performance after the break.

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This week’s concert is a day late, mostly because I was out celebrating America’s birthday. That doesn’t mean I’m going to deprive you of musical goodness, so this week you get Play! Symphony performance of music from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Hopefully, I don’t have to explain why.

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