Composer hopes Juno nod will change perceptions about video game music

When orchestral percussionist Kristofer Maddigan began his years-long journey composing the soundtrack for a video game his friends were creating, he mostly kept the passion project to himself.

As a genre, video game music doesn’t get a lot of respect.

“I work with a lot of people who aren’t gamers and I think if you’re not in that world a lot of people think it’s kind of a silly pastime,” says the 38-year-old Regina native, who is now based in Toronto as the principal percussionist with the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra.

“Not every game is a work of art, but especially now with the indie game revolution, there’s a lot of really interesting games being made and a lot of really incredible music being made for those games.

“But I didn’t really talk about it a lot because there’s a lot of people who maybe don’t understand the world so much and think it’s maybe kinda goofy.”

But his work on the indie game “Cuphead” — which was named one of the top titles of 2017 by the likes of Entertainment Weekly and game website Polygon — won over the Juno Award judging committee who chose the contenders for this year’s best instrumental album prize.

The game’s backing music, which was also released as an almost three-hour-long album, features a mix of jazz, big band and ragtime tunes recorded by live musicians.