My son signed me up to help and receive a back stage pass for for Video Games Live Sunday night in Fort Collins,Colorado at the Events Center. What an impressive show introducing the Fort Collins Symphony and the Larimer Chorale to a young generation of gamers and exposing the multi-talented creativity that goes into video game production. Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall put on a flawless performance. I was entranced by the piano playing of Lee Ann Leung. As an optometrist I have done some vision therapy training on eye hand coordination but this was way beyond anything I have ever seen. Her hands move so fast they are a blur and it does not seem possible to hit the notes at that speed. This is a show worth seeing. And BTW, make sure you have an up to date pair of eyeglasses or contact lenses or you will miss just how fast those hands fly over the piano!
A native of Springfield, Massachusetts, Tallarico entered the video game industry in 1991, working on more than 250 games Jack Wall is an American video game music composer. He has worked on video game music for over thirty games including the Myst franchise, Splinter Cell, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect.Currently, Wall is the conductor for Video Games Live, a concert featuring popular video game music performed by live orchestras and choirs. He along with fellow game composer Tommy Tallarico and many other industry leaders have worked over five years putting that show together. In another collaboration with Tommy Tallarico, Jack Wall is also co-founder of also known as the Video Game Pianist or the Blindfolded Pianist, is one of the first pianists to gain worldwide recognition for playing popular video game music on the piano, both in concert venues and in online videos.
Unlike many recognized musicians, Leung’s breakthrough occurred almost entirely online when, on May 10, 2004, a video of him playing the Super Mario Bros theme blindfolded appeared on numerous viral video websites.
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Lee Ann Leung