Maybe you’ve heard an orchestral composition that really knows how to swing. Or, maybe you haven’t. Either way, that music does exist, and composers from the US, Europe, and even East Asia have taken on the task of fusing symphonic sounds with American swing. My name’s Garrett McQueen, and on THIS edition of Noteworthy I’d like to introduce you to one composer who really knows how to swing – a man named Nobuo Uematsu. If you already know the name Nobuo Uematsu, it’s probably because you’re a fan of video games, right? Nobuo has been one of the foremost figures in the world of video game music composition for decades, with his most celebrated scores attached to a video game series called Final Fantasy. This tune, in particular, was Nobuo’s way of depicting a giant bird called a chocobo – a bird that, as you can hear, often comes with a pretty jazzy personality. By engaging his love for music with the ever-growing popularity of video games, Nobuo Uematsu has managed to harness musical genres and aesthetics from around the globe, bringing people from all walks of life together, in front of a video game screen, to enjoy orchestral music in a brand new way. This, undoubtedly, makes Nobuo Uematsu one of the world’s most noteworthy composers. Noteworthy is a production of WDAV classical public radio. Pictured: Nobuo Uematsu by Sharon Nathan, CC BY-SA 3.0 de .
Nobuo Uematsu
