Well, sure. But time and time again people have had this discussion. This is the first concert a lot of these people have attended, symphonic or otherwise.

Anyway, talk to any of these concert promoters and symphony directors, they love it. They're tapping into a new demographic, and based on the slump in orchestral concert sales around the world, that's exactly what they need. This exact sentiment is even expressed in the mission statement on the Eminence website.

I agree. I do think it's remarkable that such symphony orchestras are drawing new crowds. As I commented to my girlfriend who attended the concert with me, you can't complain about the near-universal appeal this music has.

This is probably considered late, but I've just listened to the Album, and my god, best performance and recording quality, ever. Trumps even the old FF orchestral studio recorded albums. Probably the only flaw to me was the choir not having the epic sound like the original Liberi Fatali from the game soundtrack.

Excellant album, I hope they do one for other FF and game arrangments at this amazing quality.

I was fortunate enough to meet Uematsu for free, but I was at the right place at the right time. The group I was with waited almost two hours to meet him and we were the last ones to talk to him. He did seem to pick up English phrases rather quickly. I suspect he understands it, but might not speak it all that well. At any rate, I was so nervous about meeting my musical hero, that I didn't speak all that much. I really wanted to tell him that he's the reason why I write music. I'm sure there will be other opportunities to tell him, though ;).

Another awesome thing that night was when I performed Kingdom Hearts music on the piano on video for Tim (webmaster of Squaresound) and Michael Gluck (Piano Squall). I didn't think I was that good, but it impressed them so I guess that's what matters :D! I had performed Passion, Hikari, and Dearly Beloved. Michael performed Terra's Theme, Super Mario World, Every Heart, and Time's Scar. Twas a good evening, indeed!

Please don't forget Mr Shirou Hamaguchi. He is the one responsible for the orchestration of Final Fantasy since VII's Sephiroth and Mr Uematsu would not have been able to achieve what he has today if it wasn't for Mr Hamaguchi.

The quite spoken Mr Hamaguchi has an aura about him and his earnest feeling towards music really reflect on his work.

Orchestrators in general are completely unrecognized and underappreciated. Whether one wants to admit it or not, Hamaguchi has made Uematsu's work far less lame and boring.

Yeah, agreed. It's somewhat of a let down that some of the old school composers can't keep up with the technology. Then again, a lot of these guys weren't musicians to begin with, and didn't receive any formal training. So I don't know what to think.

Thing is, it doesn't take actual training to come up with a nice melody or tune, but it takes alot of training to arrange it in the most beautiful and provocative way. I don't think its about the technology, but actual training.

I mean, we all hum and whistle tunes as we walk on the street, but to then take that tune and arrange it for a band, orchestra? Takes lessons AND talent, which most of us lack.

Personally, while I love Uematsu's tunes, he is unfortunatly not that good at arranging them half the time. To me, the better composer/arrangers are people like Mitsuda, Shimomura, Sakimoto etc. Nobuo its good at creating nice memorable melodies, and that's about the extent to how much I like his work. Hamaguchi is the one that makes his music shine.

Though speaking of technology, I wish Sakimoto can work with better synths, like, Jeremy Soule style synths. The man's work is just hindered when its done with the PS2 crappy synth. I mean god, compare FF12 with Romeo X Juliet, which do you think SOUNDS better in its execution?

Just listened to this cd for the first time. WOW! I was totally ready to write it off as yet ANOTHER cd of these old ass arrangements. But it really is the definitive version with this recording.

Although the climax to Maria and Draco is not as good as the one in More Friends, but it's still pretty good.

It's unrelated, but Kairi, Samurai Pizza Cats are AWESOME! Cool avatar!

I feel the same, I dunno if its the recording or the singers, but I felt the climax was more epic in More Friends as well.

But soundwise, this concert CD has the best sound and best recording. Every instrument can be heard crisp clear, instead of the percussions being a bit muffled in the background or something.

Thanks, its part of the GFF Samurai Pizza Cats Avatar/Sig Chain.