≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: January 10, 2025
Final Symphony – Music from FINAL FANTASY® VI, VII, and X
Final Symphony is a concert series officially licensed by Square Enix, featuring symphonic music from the video games Final Fantasy VI, VII, and X, originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu. The artistic director and producer of the world tour is Thomas Böcker.
In May 2013, Final Symphony was premiered in Germany by the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eckehard Stier. In the same month, the UK premiere of Final Symphony took place with the London Symphony Orchestra, marking the orchestra’s first-ever performance of music from video games. Subsequent concerts have been performed in Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, the USA, New Zealand, China, Austria, Australia, and Poland.
2015 saw the global, digital launch of the Final Symphony album, hitting the number 1 spot on the iTunes Classical Charts in more than ten countries and entering the Classical Album Top 5 of both the Billboard Charts and the Official UK Charts. It was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.
The exclusive arrangements for Final Symphony are by Roger Wanamo, Masashi Hamauzu, and Jonne Valtonen.
Program
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Andrew Crust, conductor
Mischa Cheung, piano
NOBUO UEMATSU Opening Fanfare (3 minutes)
NOBUO UEMATSU Final Fantasy VI – Symphonic Poem: Born with the Gift of Magic (18 minutes)
(Terra’s Theme / Kefka / Esper World / Battle, etc.)
NOBUO UEMATSU, MASASHI HAMAUZU Final Fantasy X – Piano Concerto (19 minutes)
(Besaid / Hum of the Fayth / Thunder Plains / Assault, etc.)
I. Zanarkand
II. Inori
III. Kessen
INTERMISSION
NOBUO UEMATSU Final Fantasy VII – Symphony in Three Movements (42 minutes)
(Main Theme / J-E-N-O-V-A / Tifa’s Theme / The Great Warrior, etc.)
I. Nibelheim Incident
II. Words Drowned by Fireworks
III. The Planet’s Crisis
Final Symphony © & ℗ 2013–2024 Merregnon Studios. Directed and produced by Thomas Böcker. Licensed by Square Enix. FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark or trademark of Square Enix Group Co., Ltd.
Repertoire
FINAL FANTASY VI – Symphonic Poem: Born with the Gift of Magic
Roger Wanamo, the arranger and orchestrator of this symphonic poem, has a strong connection with this particular part of the Final Fantasy series: “VI was the first Final Fantasy game I ever played and I remember being totally swept away by the depth of the story, the intricate characters, and not to mention, the stunningly beautiful music. With this arrangement I wish to retell that story as I experienced it.”
The focus of this arrangement is on the journey of Terra Branford, the heroine born with the gift of magic. She has grown up as a slave to the Empire and has been raised to become a weapon of mass destruction. As Terra breaks free from the Emperor’s bonds, she finds that she is unable to recall anything about her past. She sets out on a journey to recover her own identity, and to find out the source behind her strange powers. In her adventures she also has to save the world from the evil villain Kefka, the emperor’s jester-like court mage.
Roger Wanamo explains: “Over the course of the piece, I examine the different stages of Terra’s life that have made her into the person she is. I also take a more in-depth look at Kefka and his psychopathic personality. Once the final battle is over, and the smoke over the battlefield has cleared, Terra has finally come to grips with her past and may live freely.”
FINAL FANTASY X – Piano Concerto
I. Zanarkand
II. Inori
III. Kessen
Masashi Hamauzu, the arranger of this piano concerto, is also one of the original composers of the music for Final Fantasy X (alongside Nobuo Uematsu and Junya Nakano). He feels that working on Final Fantasy X was something very special: “In this instance I could give more priority to my feelings and sensitivity when composing music than often is the case. Naturally I also had the storyline of the game strongly in my mind, but I also got ideas from the real world outside the creations of the Final Fantasy-world.”
Having worked for so long with the Final Fantasy series, Masashi Hamauzu sees it more as a continuum than as a series of separate scenes and stories. His inspiration for the material in this concerto is more a reflection of that bigger vision and not so much connected to any certain story-arc or a set of characters. He sees this concerto as an opportunity to fulfill his vision of the music even further: “There were a few things I couldn’t express well enough while I was working originally on the music of Final Fantasy X, and I feel like I could express those things this time around.”
FINAL FANTASY VII – Symphony in Three Movements
I. Nibelheim Incident
II. Words Drowned by Fireworks
III. The Planet’s Crisis
The first movement of the symphony is based on the villain of the game, Sephiroth. Jonne Valtonen, the arranger and orchestrator of this symphony, uses the three-note motif of Sephiroth throughout the first movement as an element of structural integrity. In the final phase of the movement, “The One-Winged Angel” emerges in all its glory, before gradually distorting as all of the earlier themes of the movement are gradually built on top of each other. This distortion is a reflection of the internal chaos Sephiroth is feeling, as he becomes aware of his past. At the end of the movement, things slow down. As Sephiroth is reborn, the familiar pulse is heard “in almost spiritual context”, an apt description by Jonne Valtonen.
The second movement of the symphony deals with the themes of love, loss, and uncertainty. The hero Cloud is undecided in his feelings towards Aerith and Tifa. The movement begins with “Words Drowned by Fireworks”, a scene in which Cloud goes on a date that ends abruptly. The music moves forward representing the themes of Tifa, Cloud, and Aerith—the three themes that are always present, each one featured upfront as a main theme at certain phases of the movement. The melodies and motifs from the other themes surface to the foreground whenever there is room available from the current main theme.
“Countdown” is the beginning point of the third movement, and it contains material that recurs throughout this movement as a unifying element. The great theme of this movement is that of good versus evil, Cloud versus Sephiroth. This final confrontation is reflected by the sounds of the metallic hits that echo the themes themselves. The themes of different characters are put into the mix as they engage in the battle. Silence emerges after the intense battle and from that silence, the life-stream begins to flow, and to grow. And grow it does indeed, as Jonne Valtonen explains: “Actually, spectrally and orchestrally the chords in the end are as loud as physically possible. The sound is huge and overwhelming, much like the life-stream itself.”
Text by Mikko Laine
Artists
American Canadian conductor Andrew Crust has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet, film, and pops programs.
In his second season as Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Andrew programs and conducts a diverse array of performances throughout the state and collaborates with world-class soloists such as Sir Stephen Hough, Béla Fleck, Bella Hristova, Simone Porter, Joshua Roman, and Adam Tendler. He conducted the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s new piano concerto, Sounding, in May 2024. Andrew also led efforts to create a new pops series and revitalize the young persons’ concert programming and continues to pursue collaborations with various arts organizations in Vermont.
In his fifth season as Music Director of the Lima Symphony Orchestra (LSO), Andrew programs and conducts the Grand Series, Pops, and Educational series and has led collaborations with soloists such as Charles Yang, Amit Peled, Tracy Silverman, Sandeep Das, Awadagin Pratt, and Laquita Mitchell. Under his leadership, the orchestra has enjoyed its most diverse programming to date, engaged in new recording projects, and commissioned new works. Andrew is committed to diversity and representation in the concert hall. Under his leadership, LSO’s programming of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) and female composers has increased by over 35% during his tenure.
In recent and upcoming seasons, Andrew conducts the orchestras of Calgary, the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Elgin, Rockford, Nova Scotia, Chattanooga, Winnipeg, Laval, Billings, Vancouver Island, Sewannee, Memphis, Hartford, and Bozeman as a guest conductor, including return engagements with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with soloists such as Geneva Lewis, George Li, Zuill Bailey, Wei Luo, and Shannon Lee.
Andrew is a 2020 winner of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. In 2021, he received “Prémio a la Proyección” at the Llíria City of Music International Conducting Competition. In 2017, Andrew won first prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti. He was a semifinalist for the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship for Young Conductors, including residency at the Salzburger Festspiele.
Andrew served as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) from 2019–2022, where he led around 45 performances with the VSO each season and made dozens of recordings released on VSO Online. Andrew returns frequently to the VSO as a guest conductor.
Andrew is equally at ease in the pit, having conducted ballet with Ballet BC, Ballet Memphis, and the New Ballet Ensemble, and opera with Opera McGill, the College Light Opera Company, the Boulder Opera Company, and others. As a pops conductor, Andrew has collaborated with such artists as Rufus Wainwright, Steven Page, Tony DeSare, Michael Bolton, Dee Daniels, Cirque de la Symphonie, the United States Jazz Ambassadors, and many others. Andrew has also established himself as a conductor of live film scores performed by orchestra.
Andrew was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America in 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour and Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop, and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Abroad, he has led concerts with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, the Hamburger Symphoniker at the Mendelssohn Festival in Germany, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Chile in Santiago.
Andrew is dedicated to exploring new ways of bringing the classical music experience into the 21st century through innovative programming and marketing, creating community-oriented and socially sensitive concert experiences, and performing unique venues. Andrew firmly believes in meaningful music education, having produced and written several original educational programs with orchestras. As an arranger/orchestrator, Andrew partnered with Schirmer to make orchestrations of a set of Florence Price’s art songs, premiered in February 2022, and has orchestrated works by Alma Mahler and Prokofiev, as well as many popular and educational selections.
Mischa Cheung studied with Konstantin Scherbakov at the Zurich University of the Arts and has since had a busy career, bringing him to many concert stages and festivals worldwide. He is a member of the Gershwin Piano Quartet, a highly praised ensemble that performs spectacular arrangements on four pianos and released its album Transatlantiques with Sony Classical in 2018. Cheung plays solo and chamber music recitals and regularly performs as a soloist at the Symphonic Game Music Concerts directed by Merregnon Studios. This concert series has taken him on tour to Japan with the London Symphony Orchestra, and he has also appeared with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, Cheung played the piano solo on Final Symphony II: Music from Final Fantasy V, VIII, IX & XIII, a recording with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also worked with the renowned choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis, composing and playing the music of transdisciplinary works commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2019, Cheung released a recording of Friedrich Gulda’s Piano Concerto “For Myself” on Solo Musica to much critical acclaim. He was a member of the Echo Award–winning ensemble Spark from 2011 until 2015, taking part in extensive concert tours and numerous radio, TV, and CD productions, including recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Berlin Classics. Mischa Cheung teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts. After being an assistant for Konstantin Scherbakov’s masterclasses for many years, he was recently appointed a piano and improvisation lecturer.
Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.
Since taking the helm in 2015, Shelley has shaped the Orchestra’s artistic vision, building on the legacy of his predecessor, Pinchas Zukerman, who led the ensemble for 16 seasons. Shelley’s influence extends beyond the NAC. He serves as Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the United Kingdom and Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in the United States. In addition to his other conducting roles, the Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles’s Orange County announced Shelley’s appointment as its next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026–2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025. Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds and Principal Youth Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser complement Shelley’s leadership. In 2024, the Orchestra marked a new chapter with the appointment of Henry Kennedy as its first-ever Resident Conductor.
The Orchestra has a rich history of partnerships with renowned artists such as James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Renée Fleming, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Dutcher, Jan Lisiecki, Ray Chen, and Yeol Eum Son, underscoring its reputation as a destination for world-class talent. As one of the most accessible, inclusive, and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
A hallmark of the NAC Orchestra is its national and international tours. The Orchestra has performed concerts in every Canadian province and territory and earned frequent invitations to perform abroad. These tours spotlight Canadian composers and artists, bringing their voices to stages across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
Tobi Hunt McCoy is enjoying another year as season Stage Manager with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In past seasons, she stage-managed Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Christopher Plummer in 2001 and Colm Feore in 2014. She co-produced the 1940s Pops show On the Air with Jack Everly for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, a show they co-produced in 2007 for the NAC Orchestra.
In 2018, McCoy made her Southam Hall acting debut in the role of Stage Manager in the Magic Circle Mime Co.’s production of Orchestra from Planet X. Additional professional duties have included aiding Susanna and the Countess in schooling the Count and Figaro on the finer points of marital love during The Marriage of Figaro, keeping her eyes open (for the first time ever) during the flying monkey scene in The Wizard of Oz, mistakenly asking Patrick Watson for proof of identity backstage, holding her breath while marvelling at the athletic ability of the cast during Cirque Goes Broadway, continuing to implement feedback on her British-Columbian French with the choruses of Ottawa, and cheering on Luke and Princess Leia with Charlie Ross, Émilie Fournier, and Eric Osner during the Star Wars Pops concert.
In her spare time, McCoy is the Head of Arts, Drama, English, and Library at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Alexander Shelley
Music Director
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeffrey Dyrda
Carissa Klopoushak
Manuela Milani
*Martine Dubé
*Renée London
*Heather Schnarr
*Oleg Chelpanov
Second Violins
**Emily Kruspe (principal)
Emily Westell
Jessy Kim
Frédéric Moisan
Leah Roseman
Karoly Sziladi
Mark Friedman
**Winston Webber
**Edvard Skerjanc
*Marc Djokic
*Sara Mastrangelo
*Karoly Sziladi Jr
*Elspeth Durward
*Austin Woo
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
**David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey
Tovin Allers
*Sonya Probst
*Pamela Fay
*Kelvin Enns
*Mary-Kathryn Stevens
*Emily Kistemaker
Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Marc-André Riberdy
Leah Wyber
Timothy McCoy
*Sonya Matoussova
*Ethan Allers
*Fanny Marks
Double Basses
Sam Loeck (principal)
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
**Marjolaine Fournier
*Paul Mach
*Doug Ohashi
*Travis Harrison
Flutes
Joanna G’froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
*Christian Paquette
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
**Anna Petersen
*Melissa Scott
*Lief Mosbaugh
English Horn
Anna Petersen
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
*Shauna Barker
Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
*Alex Eastley
Horns
*Mikhailo Babiak (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
*Olivier Brisson
*Micajah Sturgess
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
*Amy Horvey
*Michael Fedyshyn
Trombones
*Nate Fanning (guest principal)
*Steve Dyer
Bass Trombone
Zachary Bond
Tuba
Chris Lee (principal)
Timpani
*Jonathan Rance (guest principal)
Percussion
Andrew Johnson
Jonathan Wade
*Andrew Harris
*Louis Pino
Harp
*Angela Schwarzkopf (guest principal)
Piano
*Olga Gross
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
Assistant Personnel Manager
Ruth Rodriguez Rivera
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
Stage Manager
Tobi Hunt McCoy
*Additional musicians
**On leave
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Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
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International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees