How has your year been since Game Music Connect 2013?
Hi, Sam – thanks very much for having me. It’s great to be back talking with you about the next Game Music Connect! To answer your question – I’ve been blessed with a busy and productive year working on a handful of videogame music and sound productions, of various shapes and sizes – from a complete reboot of an entire soundtrack I wrote some years ago (Transport Tycoon), to one-off theme tunes for indie titles. Now, of course, I’m looking forward to what I know will be one of the highlights of my year – standing on stage at the Purcell Room, welcoming everybody to this year’s Game Music Connect – plus we’ll be welcoming another stellar line-up of guest speakers.
John Broomhall welcomes a packed house to the inaugural Game Music Connect
How was the response after the first event?
We’re extremely grateful for the amazing support and appreciation Game Music Connect received. What the feedback tells us is that delegates found it both informative and entertaining. Even amidst some fairly serious subject matter, there was some great humor too. We were really happy that people loved the venue and the informal networking, not just during and immediately afterwards, but also well on into the evening elsewhere.
Game Music Connect co-founders James Hannigan and John Broomhall hanging out backstage
So you’re excited about Game Music Connect 2014 – any particular reasons? What can we expect from Game Music Connect this year?
Well, we still have lots of preparation to do but yeah – excited. James and I were very impressed and even touched by the warm reception the inaugural event received and this instills confidence to keep moving things forward. You can expect a knock-out guest list of brilliant game music composers, music execs and audio directors with vibrant sessions covering both new subject matter and also providing air time for stuff which was clearly popular last year but curtailed by time constraints. I’m thinking particularly of the demonstrations of interactive music, more discussion of indie games, and generally more time for audience Q&A.
Stephen Deutsch who opened for us last year is a hard act to follow, but I think we’ve got exactly the right man in the person of Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Music Marketing for Electronic Arts. He’s a brilliant speaker and passionate about videogames music – and an interesting character, in so far as he migrated to games from the music business, and it’s safe to say he’s had a major impact. I’m really looking forward to hearing what he’ll bring to Game Music Connect.
Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Music Marketing for Electronic Arts who will give the opening keynote address at this year’s Game Music Connect
And you have some interesting new supporters and sponsors this year?
Yes we do. Firstly, I’m really happy to say Sony Playstation are supporting us again which we greatly appreciate, and we also have Cool Music and Audiokinetic sponsoring us, two A1 fantastic companies.
Classic FM is our signature media partner and will be running broadcast content specifically to coincide with Game Music Connect – as you can imagine, we’re pretty stoked about that.
And finally, we’re delighted and proud to say we are supported by the British Academy this year – BAFTA – and of course it’s an absolute pleasure to be welcoming composer Garry Schyman to Game Music Connect who took home this year’s coveted gong for original music. We’ll be featuring him in THE BAFTA INTERVIEW, focusing on his Bafta-award winning score for Bioshock Infinite plus he’ll be participating in a couple of other panel discussions.
Garry Schyman, Bafta-award winning composer of Bioshock Infinite who’ll be featured at this year’s Game Music Connect
You can get all the latest released information about speakers, sessions, partners, sponsors etc at www.gamemusicconnect.com
We’re definitely looking forward to going again this year, it’s a fantastic event to attend!
www.gamemusicconnect.com T @gameartconnect FB Game Music Connect
www.johnbroomhall.co.uk T @JohnBroomhall FB JohnBroomhallMusic/Broomers Live