Final Fantasy concerts
Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix that includes video games, motion pictures, and other merchandise.
Voices – Music from Final Fantasy was a concert held in Yokohama, Japan on February 18, 2006, focusing on vocal pieces from the series.
The orchestra was conducted by Taizou Takemoto, and the concert was hosted by Masakazu Morita and Mayuko Aoki, the Japanese voice actors for Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X.
Their rendition of "Suteki da Ne" from Final Fantasy X was accompanied by Japanese folk singer Ritsuki Nakano, known as "RIKKI", who sang the track in the original game.
"At Zanarkand" and "Yuna's Decision", both from Final Fantasy X, were solo piano pieces performed by Aki Kuroda, while "Liberi Fatali" and "One-Winged Angel" saw the orchestra combined with a small chorus.
The album spans 25 tracks over two discs and covers a duration of 1:47:27, and includes the initial tuning of the orchestra, the speeches given by the MC, and the songs themselves.
[6] Liz Maas of RPGFan agreed; although she found there to be a lack of actual innovation overall, she felt the music was "wonderful" and the album as a whole "rather enjoyable".
[6] Patrick Dell of Soundtrack Central felt that the album was "wonderful" and "an impressive display", although he greatly disliked the performance of the choir.
[7] Dave of Square Enix Music Online was not as impressed by the album, saying that many of the performances were "lacking cohesion and direction", although he felt that overall it was "satisfactory" and "worth repeated listens".
[15] The series was originally conceived as a single concert to be held on May 10, 2004, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
[14][16] The concert was hosted by James Arnold Taylor, the English voice actor for Final Fantasy X's Tidus, and featured large screens hanging above the orchestra playing scenes relevant to the music being performed.
[16] The concert was termed "a complete success" by IGN, who commented that they "walked away impressed with the performance, the presentation, and the timelessness of Uematsu's compositions".
Roth took on the role of conductor for the series after trying to get the show to be performed by his Chicago Pops orchestra, and hearing that other tour locations were hesitant about putting on the concert.
Emiko Shiratori performed both the Japanese and English versions of "Melodies of Life" in a single piece, opera singers Stephenie Woodling, Chad Berlinghier, and Todd Robinson sang the vocal components of "Opera "Maria & Draco"", and the CSUF University Singers, a local choir, performed as part of "One-Winged Angel".
[20] The album was well received by critics such as Patrick Gann of RPGFan, who said that "the recording quality is great, almost every song is aimed to please, and rarely do Square Enix fail in this regard".
[20] Sophia of Square Enix Music Online concurred, terming it "an album with a little bit of everything" and "a must-have for any Final Fantasy fan".
Emiko Shiratori sang "Melodies of Life", Rikki performed "Suteki da ne", Izumi Masuda reprised her role in "Memoro de la Ŝtono", and Angela Aki sang "Kiss me Good-bye", to date the only song from Final Fantasy XII to be performed at a Final Fantasy concert.
Other local singers and choirs joined the orchestra for the remaining pieces, with Etsuyo Ota, Tomoaki Watanabe, and Tetsuya Odagawa performing "Opera "Maria and Draco"" as they had in the Tour de Japon two years prior.
[22] A DVD of the performance was released on June 21, 2006, containing a recording of the full concert as well as interviews with Nobuo Uematsu, Arnie Roth, and the vocalists.
[25] Launched in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of Final Fantasy, the two-hour-long concerts include music from every single game of the series.
"Kiss Me Goodbye" from Final Fantasy XII was played at the June 18, 2010 Detroit show, though it was not officially added to the general setlist.
He was hesitant for pieces from Final Fantasy XIII and XIV to be added, as he did not feel that they had been around long enough to build a strong following like the older songs.
[34] Andre of Square Enix Music Online, however, despite also wishing for more original arrangements, felt that the quality was superb and that the album as a whole was "one of life and energy".
Countries visited have included Japan, the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Sweden, Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Netherlands.
Arnie Roth returned to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra with a completely new program presenting more pieces from Final Fantasy.
[50] Additional performances took place in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, the United States, New Zealand, China, Austria and Australia.
[47] Conducted by Eckehard Stier (Drammatica by Yoko Shimomura; Symphonic Fantasies Tokyo concerts), the concert featured pianists including Benyamin Nuss (Wuppertal and London in 2013), Mischa Cheung (Tampere in 2014; Hong Kong in 2017; Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Vienna in 2018) and Katharina Treutler (Tokyo, Aarhus and Stockholm in 2014; Amsterdam, San Diego, Baltimore and San Francisco in 2016; Melbourne in 2018).
[56] A concert devoted solely to music from Final Fantasy X, titled Dreams of Zanarkand, was performed on October 8, 2016, in Cologne, Germany.
A Video Game Symphony world tour from 2006 onwards, for which Nobuo Uematsu composed the opening fanfare that accompanies each performance.
