Paris may be best well-known as the City of Lights, but the new game Remember Me turns it into a city of memories.
French composer Olivier Deriviere had the opportunity to write music for a city that looked both remarkably similar yet drastically different for his home town.
Olivier's Paris, in Remember Me, is Neo Paris in 2084, in an age where memories are stored digitally and shared around the world. But much of the famous Parisian architecture still stands.
This presented Olivier with an opportunity to create an acoustic score that's electronically manipulated.
Olivier achieved this by recording a complete score with a full orchestra. After recording, he brought the audio files back to Paris and started manipulating the results.
In preparation for that task, Olivier did mock-ups of a sampled orchestra performing his score, then tinkered with it until he had an idea of what the finished product might sound like.
At the start of the game, the music sounds orchestrally traditional. And, if you're curious what orchestral music from France sounds like, you must hear this score. And listen to some Maurice Ravel and some Claude Debussy while you're at it.
Olivier managed to reflect the digital overtones of the environment in Remember Me while representing the art and history of Paris and French culture.
Hear Olivier Derivier on the new episode of Top Score from Classical MPR; also available on iTunes.
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