Every game composer I've talked with has so much respect for the musicians who bring their music to life on the soundtracks. In this episode we'll meet three outstanding performers: oboist Kristin Naigus , who's recorded scores for Austin Wintory and many others; session violinist Patti Rudisill , who's a member of the Nashville Scoring Orchestra, whose performances can be heard on the scores for Destiny 2 , Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ori and the Blind Forest, and many more; and singer and flutist

The 1930's cartoon style of Cuphead , from Studio MDHR demanded a soundtrack just as unique. Kris Maddigan , a professional percussionist, spent years reverse-engineering the iconic jazz styles of the first half of the 20th century, including Ragtime, Dixieland and Big Band music. As he told me, it was a project that stretched all his musical muscles. Kris' unique soundtrack for Cuphead even has a "period" vinyl release from IAM8Bit , which looks like a vintage RCA record from the 1930's, and it

There's no music as you're racing your 1974 E-Type Jag around legendary tracks like Spa. Instead, composer and sound designer for Project Cars 2 , Stephen Baysted says his music is created to set the scene and get the player anticipating the racing action that's about to start. That included some very personal recollections about the mental game of racing from Ben Collins, the Stig on the BBC's original Top Gear series! As a self-described "petrolhead," Stephen says working on the Project Cars

Once he got over his surprise at the new direction Bungie was going to take Destiny 2 – destroying everything that's been familiar for the last three years – Mike Salvatori embraced the exciting prospect offered by new planets, new enemies and a totally fresh vibe for the game. As he told me, Mike and the team: Skye Lewin and C. Paul Johnson, wrote over 900 minutes of brand new music for Destiny 2! Mike and the team invited several other composers to join in the massive effort to write so much

Jessica Curry won a BAFTA award for her soundtrack for The Chinese Room's Everybody's Gone to the Rapture , so when it was announced that she was working on music for a new game, the excitement was palpable. As she told me, the story of So Let Us Melt is like a fairytale, and it was so much fun to write joyful music for it. Even if you don't have access to a Google Daydream VR system, you can still experience So Let Us Melt when it's featured at the Future of StoryTelling Summit, October 6-8 in

Ryan Ike says the writers of West of Loathing , a send-up of classic Western clichés, didn't pass up any opportunities for jokes, so he decided to write his music as if it's a serious Western as a foil for all the jokes. As we'll hear though, he had lots of fun with his track titles, which include Sit fer a Spell, The Sticks for Hands Rag, and Please Buy Our Game. Breaking into the game industry can be a challenge, and getting that first gig as a composer even harder, so Ryan shared some great

With two new OST's, Absolver and Tooth and Tail , Austin Wintory returned to the idea of scoring combat like a dance sequence, which he first developed on Assassin's Creed Syndicate . In our conversation, Austin described the ballet qualities in the combat of Absolver , while he brought out the Bruegel-esque character of Tooth and Tail . Over the years, Austin has developed some great partnerships with the musicians who perform his soundtracks for films and games, including violinist Sandy

Gareth Coker 's massive soundtrack for ARK: Survival Evolved is as huge as the dinosaurs you can train and battle! As he told me, developing the music while the game was in early access provided all kinds of unexpected challenges. Gareth says composing the soundtrack for a huge 93-piece orchestra and recording it in Abbey Road's gigantic Studio One was a dream come true! He put the stellar Philharmonia Orchestra through their paces with his epic boss battle music, but, he says, they all brought

Montreal composer Maxime Goulet ( Warhammer 40,000 ) wanted to do something really special to help celebrate the 375th anniversary of his city, which is home to more than 125 video game studios. He organized a spectacular concert, featuring music exclusively written for games made in Montreal. The concert is Friday, September 29th at the Place des Arts. As Maxime told me, it's a monumental project, but totally worth the effort. Dina Gilbert will be conducting the 60-member Orchestre

Grant Kirkhope says he was stunned when he found out that instead of a new Rabbids game, he'd be working on a totally new idea: Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. As he told me in our conversation, once he realized he'd be drawing on Koji Kondo's legendary music for Mario, he was in shock! After he got over his fear of messing up some of the most beloved game music of all time, Grant got to work creating a sound that combines classic Nintendo themes, the craziness of Ubisoft's Rabbids, and his