Pokémon goes to the Proms: 2022 season to feature first video game music concert

The BBC Proms video games concert will look back over the history of the genre, with scores from The Legend of Zelda, Battlefield 2042 and more

For the past 10 years or so, if you lived in a big city and fancied hearing an orchestra play something from Metal Gear Solid or Sonic the Hedgehog instead of the Romantic period, there has been no shortage of options. Touring orchestras have played music from games such as Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Assassin's Creed for appreciative audiences all over the world. The largest such series, Video Games Live, has been running since 2005 and has played over 400 shows in Los Angeles, Beijing, Sydney and elsewhere. But this summer, for the first time, video game music will be part of the BBC Proms season at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A concert on 1 August will feature orchestral selections and adaptations from soundtracks spanning gaming history, including The Legend of Zelda, Shadow of the Colossus and Battlefield 2042.

We've always very happily put on concerts of film music, [but] I think if I'm honest we haven't felt it was quite the right moment to put on a gaming music prom until now, because we were still waiting for a lot of composers to enter this field," says David Pickard, director of the Proms. Now we can be there on the front foot and say that there's a huge range of music here, appealing to a new audience, and of a very high quality that we're really happy to have at the Proms."