Students band together to bring the Skyrim theme to life
Led by their Chief Conductor, Richard Davis, students from the University of Melbourne’s Symphony Orchestra have banded together to record and film the theme tune of Skyrim, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the iconic video game.
Associate Professor in Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium, Richard Davis, undertook the ambitious project to bring this powerful recording of the ‘Dragonborn’ theme to life during Melbourne’s long lockdown.
Davis worked remotely and methodically with each of the 65 instrumentalists and eight singers who make up this talented team. Each individual part was recorded remotely on the musician’s phones and blended together seamlessly by Davis and sound engineer Haig Burnell, to make an incredible symphonic sound.
“The orchestra had Zoom rehearsals with me,” said Davis “where we talked through the music and I described what I wanted from each of the players.”
When the musicians of the University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra found out they would be working with Bethesda’s original sheet music, to record and film a rendition of the Skyrim theme, they were “thrilled,” said Davis.
The process required each of the musicians to invest themselves deeply, not only in the score, but of the fantasy world of Skyrim itself, with each of the eight singers undertaking a special session where they closely “studied the pronunciation of the game’s ‘Dragon’ language.”
Skyrim’s spirited score is brought into even sharper relief in this recording, with some of the student musicians even dressing up and adding Skyrim backgrounds to their Zoom rooms.
The recording of ‘Dragonborn’ by the University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is now being featured internationally on Bethesda’s platforms in celebration of Skyrim’s 10th anniversary.
Bethesda’s Skyrim video game has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and has been named one of gaming’s most influential titles.