Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame:
Video Game Music with
Katarzyna Bryla, violin & Hui-Chuan Chen, Piano

A virtuoso violinist with diverse musical interests, Katarzyna Bryla made her debut as a soloist with Zielona Gora Philharmonic at the age of 14 and in Royal Albert Hall with Poznan Chamber Orchestra, and recently performed at the J.F.Kennedy Centerin Washington D.C. Katarzyna has won an impressive number of international competitions, including 1st prize at the National Children’s Art Competition in Warsaw, 2nd prize at the National J.S.Bach competition, where she was awarded a special prize for the best performance of Bach, and 3rd prize at the Krzysztof Penderecki International Competition, after which she was invited by Maestro Penderecki himself to perform as a soloist with Sinfonietta Cracovia in the International Maazel/Vilar Conducting Competition. She performs frequently as a guest artist at many top music festivals.

Pianist Hui-Chuan Chen has performed widely throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. An active chamber musician, in 2003, she accompanied soprano Shou- Hua Su in concert at the National Recital Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. In 2004, she collaborated with mezzo-soprano Chi-Chun Chan in the same hall. Hui-Chuan has also participated in many festivals, including the Chigiana Accademia in Siena, Italy, and Universität Mozateum in Salzburg. In the summer of 2009, Hui-Chuan was awarded the fellowship in the field of instrumental collaborative artist to attended the Aspen Festival of Music, where she was invited back as a staff accompanist in 2011. The past summer, Hui-Chuan participated in Songfest, where she performed Schumann's Spanish Lieder for vocal ensemble under the instruction of Graham Johnson.

All the works for this Fifteen Minutes of Fame written for Katarzyna Bryla and Hui-Chuan Chenhave a theme of video game music.

Concert Dates

  • September 28, 2014 - Jan Hus Church, New York City

Concert Program

Concert Program

Composers Selected

  • Stage to Stage

    Rodrigo Baggio

    Rodrigo Baggio – Guitarist/Composer (São Paulo/Brazil) His music has been performed in many cities around the world such as São Paulo (Brazil), Paris (France), Quebec (Canada), Bremen (Germany), London (England), Bucharest (Romania), Vermont, New York and Washington DC (USA). As a performer, he has played concerts in different countries of the globe.

    Another stage left behind... successfully. And now, one new stage... toward to a new triumph.

  • SWORD OF BLOOD AND SILVER

    Erik Branch

    Erik Branch is a native of New York City, and received a BA and MA in Music (Composition) from Hunter College. He lives near Orlando, Florida, where he is active as a pianist, musical director, composer/arranger, operatic tenor, and actor on stage and screen.

    ...A magical sword compounded of blood and silver, a flight from demonic enemies, a beautiful maiden held captive in a mountain fastness — This is the game "SWORD OF BLOOD AND SILVER." Only you can learn how it will all end and control the outcome!

  • Returning

    Inna Buganina

    Inna Buganina lives in the Ulyanovsk City, Russia. She worked as a teacher, a journalist. She took lessons in vocal from Ulyanovsk teacher Igor Asanov and composer and teacher Stanislav Stankevich. In recent years she studies composition under supervision of the russian cellist and composer Vsevolod Youdenitch. Inna also appreciates the belarussian composer Andrei Bogdanov for some consultations.

    In the forest, at beautiful flowers three little fairies lived. They drank dewdrops and ate nectar of flowers, danced in the moonlight and slept at the sunlight, covered with a petal. But once tourists arrived to their forest and took away the beautiful plant to their home in a city. At night the fairies woke up and saw neither stars, nor the moon, nor their native wood - because they appeared on a balcony of a multi-storey building. So their travel which ended with happy returning home began. Meetings with new friends, dangers, and, which was most important, surprising adventures waited for the fairies on their way.

  • level up!

    Faye Chiao

    Composer Faye Chiao has been honored with the Ada Arwens Morawetz Memorial Award in Composition and the prestigious Randolph S. Rothschild Scholarship in composition at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. Chiao has also been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is currently the resident composer for the OMEGA Youth Orchestra in Virginia.

  • The Fleetwood Series

    Luke Deane

    Technically a composer, Luke Deane likes to perform what he writes and he likes to write all kinds of things. He has performed on stages, car parks, mountainsides, over a network and even on a departing train. This Year, Luke read peoples fortunes by candlelight, cut up a pineapple to music and hung out of a window dressed as Mozart! Join Luke and the Birmingham Conservatoire gang for a bit of contemporary music magic!

    The idea behind my game "The Fleetwood Series" is that you will have to drive these caravans through a series of complex, narrow, country lanes in order to find the campsite and have your holiday. The larger the caravan, the more difficult the driving job. The prelude is the smallest caravan and so it is LEVEL 1.

  • Into The World

    Abraham Devenport

    My name is Abraham Devenport. I have been interested in writing scores for video games for quite some time and thought that this competition would be very fun. I am currently a freshman attending Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and majoring in music composition.

    This score was produced on the music notation software: Finale 2014 edition

  • One

    Gregory Jackson

    Dr. Gregory Jackson is a percussionist, composer, educator, and author and has published 11 books sold world-wide. Dr. Jackson is a member of the Percussive Arts Society Composition Committee. At PASIC, Jackson placed in the top 4 twice performing original solos. Jackson proudly endorses Remo Inc., Pearl Percussion, and Pro-mark.

    This work follows a character on a quest to become a legend. Along the way, many challenges are place in front of the character that must be overcome while rivals are in pursuit of obtaining the coveted title of being the "One". Named after the new Xbox console.

  • Whitechappel, 1888

    Gareth Rhys Jones

    Gareth Rhys Jones (born 1979) is from Shrewsbury in the UK. He studied piano with Gerald Watkiss and Geoffrey Buckley, and studied music at the University of Leeds, specialising in composition under the guidance of Philip Wilby.

    You play a private detective investigating the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper. Can you sort fact from fiction, decipher clues and discover the true identity of Victorian London’s most notorious criminal?

  • mini-variations for violin and piano

    Shigeru Kan-no

    A Japanese Composer-Conductor. In Fukushima/ Japan. Studies in Fukushima, Tokyo, Wien, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg and Frankfurt with Shimazu, I・Yun, Nishimura, Österreicher, Bernstein, Lachenmann, Rilling and Zender: theory, piano, composition, conducting and musicology. Get 58 times Competiton and Conducting Prizes, *over 150 Opera-repertoires, 700 Concert-repertoires.

    A mini-variations for violin and piano. Within1 minute I can do 6 varietions without theme. The music is easy and light. Each vafriation is 2 and half bar. First islike theme. 2nd is Accopagment with rhythm. 3rd is a change between violin and piano. 4th is a melody with spring, 5th is ornament, 6th is long accord and puls.

  • Yorkville Separatist

    Laszlo Kékszakállú

    Transylvanian born Laszlo Kékszakállú studied clarinet at Universitatea Naţională de Muzică din Bucureşti, Romania. He was a founding member of the psychedelic-post-modern-experimental-chamber-rock ensemble éhes Magyar. His music has been performed by various individuals and groups in Europe.

    The year 2016, New York City Mayor DiBlasio has officially declared his “War on the Rich” policy. Neighborhoods deemed unequal in wealth, quality of life, and income are to be denied city services to make them “more equal” to other neighborhoods. The revolution starts on New York’s Upper East Side/Yorkville.

  • Boss Battle: Gearbox

    Michael Maiorana

    Michael Maiorana is a composer and arranger working in Grinnell, IA, and Detroit, MI. He is very interested in video game music and particularly enjoys the dramatic RPG soundtracks of Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu. Michael enjoys writing for choir, small ensembles, and friends.

    Threshers and Reapers stream from their mechanized lair to lay waste to the forest. Our heroes battle through them ferociously and enter the lair, only to encounter Gearbox, the source of the mechanical destruction. His massive metal husk gleams with oil, his red lenses focus on our heroes... His gears spring into action...!

  • High levels in one video-game

    Daniel Mihai

    Romanian violinist Daniel Mihai chose to follow new music under the tuteledge of Maestro Serban Nichifor and Liana Alexandra. He completed his BA in 2007 and his MA in 2009. He is grateful to these teachers and considers them as "spiritual parents who aided me to grow up." Daniel is currently finishing PhD courses-extramural form of higher education-UNMB. Daniel Mihai has attended MBA courses in the Faculty of Performing Art, with the objective of improvement and assimilation of all knowledge related to contemporary music, both orchestral as well as chamber soloists/violinist. He completed thesis March, last year 2013. Daniel is also professor of violin for the National College "Regina Maria" in Constanta, where is teching pupils who loves violin music. For this composition I choose to realise one special moment in a truly pst-romantic piano skills in only 60 seconds!

    Indeed, I WANT TO THANK YOU for this amazing project and I hop ethat composition called High levels in one video game will be played in the session of you, Mmelle Katarzyna Bryla and Mmelle Hui-Chuan Chen I pick some piano techniques well-known in writing and I put this agility of violine and in the second section of this work.The tempo will be fast but in a continuing feeling till the end!

  • Cantabile

    Eurydice V. Osterman

    Eurydice V. Osterman, a Fulbright Scholor, is a published author and composer whose works have been read and performed around the world. They are cited in, Music by Black Women Composers: A Bibliography of Available Scores by Helen Walker-Hill, CBRM Monographs, No.5. She is also the featured composer in the dissertation of Angelique Clay, “The Life and Music of Eurydice V. Osterman.” She is the author of the books, What God Says About Music, and Worship: From Praise Him to Praise Hymn. She is professor of music at Oakwood University, Huntsville, AL.

    Cantabile is a piece that utilizes quartal and quintal harmonies to paint a sound image representing the screen savers that evolved from one geometric shape into another. It is also a piece that can represent almost anything that the listener imagines, especially the non-existent video game.

  • Level-Up

    Jody John Ramey

    Jody John Ramey is a chamber composer and a choreographer that is committed to inclusive dance practices (dancers with and without disabilities). He is also co-author of Autistic’s Guide to Dating. He resides in in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son.

    In the 1980’s, video games tended to have much simpler music, more repetitive, and more mechanical. Any gamer could recognize a game tune in a couple of notes. I grew up gaming before games became interactive movies, and this piece attempts to evoke something from that era.

  • Unfated End [Game Over]

    Alexander Simon

    In addition to composing, Alexander also performs and writes about music. He has studied with Andrew Staniland, Christopher Butterfield and Georges Dimitrov among others. He lives in Victoria, BC where he is working on his MMus.

    I know all too well the frustration of losing hours of work in a game, so I thought it would be nice to programme a game over theme that is soothing but appropriately melancholic.