Level Up

For Gameboy and Strings

Level Up for Gameboy and Strings was composed to celebrate the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s 110th anniversary - composition staff were asked to compose a minute of music, using the motif S-C-M (E♭-C-E) somewhere in the work, in whatever way we wished.

Since I was a new lecturer in Composition for Creative industries, I thought my piece should reflect screen music. It re-expresses a simple 8-bit platformer theme through varied music topics: a hurry (c. 110years ago), a pastoral (c. 50 years ago), and 21st-century ‘corporate classicism,’ used for dramatic and action sequences. I set myself two rules for this piece: firstly, given recent times, it should be fun — and more importantly, optimistic. Secondly, since we are celebrating a place of learning and discovering music, I should learn a new way to make music. I've had a Nintendo Game Boy sitting in my studio for about a decade that has been haunting me. So, the obvious choice was to use it for the first time in combination with a string orchestra.

dAs a new lecturer in composition for creative industries, I decided to write a piece that represents screen music, drawing on