The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses is a concert tour featuring music from the Legend of Zelda video game series. The concert is performed with a live orchestra and choir, and the organizers use local musicians in each city.
The tour's official site describes itself thusly:
Designed to be a journey as epic and thrilling as the Legend itself, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses presents the music of this celebrated franchise with all-new arrangements directly approved by franchise producer Eiji Aonuma and Nintendo composer and sound director Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda).
Featuring a first in video game concert history, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses has been arranged and programmed with classical sensibilities in mind, organizing the music of this beloved franchise into a complete, four-movement symphony, worthy of the Hero of Hyrule himself.
(When they say "four-movement symphony," they mean they've arranged the piece into four distinct parts. It doesn't follow the traditional classical-style formula of a sonata form movement, a slow movement, a dance movement in either minuet or scherzo and trio and a bombastic sonata form or rondo finale.)
The producers have organized the concert into sections with the four-movement part serving as the crux of the performance. There have been two "seasons" of the concert (the second of which was delightfully subtitled "Second Quest"); the additional music varied in each "season," but the "symphony" remained the same.
Both concerts began with an overture, several interludes from games in the series and a prelude explaining the "goddesses" theme. The main suite was broken up by an intermission between the second and third movements. There was another interlude following the resumption of the suite after intermission, and several encores at the end of the concert.
Each of the four "movements" covers a game from the Zelda canon: Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and A Link to the Past. Footage from each of the games was projected on a large screen on stage, synchronized with the music.
Review
So much fun. I went to both versions of the concert when the tour came to Toronto in 2012 and 2013. I have to give extra points to the first incarnation because I happened to prefer some of the interlude music a bit more — hearing a live choir sing the Temple of Time music is really something else. The second incarnation of the concert featured a brief suite from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, which I loved, but I'd talked up the Temple of Time music to my sister (who didn't come the first year) so much that it was a bit of a letdown when they didn't play it again.
Prior to the first show, I read that the final movement was going to be based on A Link to the Past and assumed it would end with the game's triumphant ending music, but no such luck. (The lovely end credits music, which also appears in that YouTube clip, did make an appearance.)
I go to a fair number of classical concerts; this was decidedly more relaxed. There was even cosplay, which was fun.
I realize I just said that it was slightly disappointing when some of the same music didn't resurface the second year, but I also feel that it might have been cool to hear another four-part suite with music from four other games. There are a lot of Zelda games, and it would be cool to see more of them have their symphonic day.
To see whether the tour is coming to your area, go here.