Screen Time

The new podcast from Classical MPR, Top Score, explores and celebrates the classical music composed for video games.

Bernard Herrmann was an Academy Award-winning American composer whose unforgettable collaborations include Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock, Citizen Kane with Orson Welles and Taxi Driver with Martin Scorsese. Minnesota Opera's new production of his only opera celebrates the centennial of the composer's birth and is the first major revival of this forgotten masterpiece since it was written in Minneapolis in 1951.

There is a new generation of musicians with a growing interest in performing in and attending concerts by orchestral ensembles. Kids have always wanted to learn to play the melodies from Hollywood blockbuster movies and hit television shows, but there's a newer game in town, so to speak.

Tommy Tallarico is passionate about opening the eyes of non-gamers to the world of video gaming and drawing in a new generation of classical music lovers. He's managed to do both with his live concert series Video Games Live.