I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's great to see a younger and/or less-traditional audience attending symphony concerts. But I wonder w

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's great to see a younger and/or less-traditional audience attending symphony concerts. But I wonder what percentage of these first-timers would ever come back for a non-videogame music performance? Because—the title of this article notwithstanding—if these concerts don't do anything to cultivate an audience who actually engages with classical music (or "art music" or "western concert music", call it what you like) then videogames are not going to save the symphony. Not even close. People in the comments rightly jumped all over the guy in the article who said these concerts were “akin to Mouton Rothschild using its wine to make and sell sangria.” But there is a point buried under all the snobbishness: video game music (and film music) are not supposed to be concert music. In fact a good film composer would probably tell you that if their score for a film is so compelling and interesting that it can be extracted out and plunked down in the concert hall as a fully-fledged work, they're doing it wrong. Film/videogame scores are (by definition) supposed to be subservient to the whole of which they are a part. Thus it's the narrative of the game or movie that drives the formal aspects of the music. This isn't to say that there can't be greatness and even genius in scores, but that it's not being used in service of producing a stand-alone concert work. Which is why even very good scores usually have long passages of music that successfully create an atmosphere for a particular scene, but taken out of that context would sounds rather boring and aimless in a concert hall. Similarly the kind of drama evoked in a concert piece where you have musical themes that are presented and then developed and transformed at length just doesn't work for film scores, where you are working in much shorter time increments (like the length of a scene). This is why even the greatest film scores (Maurice Jarre's score for Lawrence of Arabia and John Williams' score for Star Wars, for example) are known for having a few really memorable, resonant melodies and/or for the way in which they contribute to a memorable scene. I've gone to film music concerts and enjoyed them, but I'm under no illusion that it's necessarily the most challenging or profound stuff. I'm also aware that it's partly the memories and associations I have with the movies themselves that I am enjoying when I listen to the music. In any case, it's not at all the same experience as a classical music concert. I hope that some of the people who have dipped their toes in the water listening to an orchestra perform "The Legend of Zelda" might be curious enough to go back and hear what other, far more interesting kinds of things an orchestra can do. Because if not, these concerts will be a nice windfall that can help pad an orchestra's bottom line (and god knows they could use the money). But they won't do what orchestras need most, which is to develop a real, life-long appreciation for classical music in younger audiences. Unfortunately this article presents zero statistics one way or the other on that point.