Jesper Kyd

Jesper Kyd

Jesper Kyd (born in Hørsholm, Denmark) is an acclaimed video game and film music composer. He combines sounds of dark ambient, electronic and symphonic music and has won many awards. He is also notable for his work in the demoscene, where he composed a large amount of music in his teenage years, in particular a ten year long set of gatherings known as "The Party".

Early years

Jesper Kyd started playing piano at an early age. Later, he took several years of training in classical guitar, note reading, choir singing and classical composition for piano.

Kyd was always more interested in the compositional aspects of music and received a Commodore 64 when he was 14, enabling him to compose music for the demoscene. Several years later he obtained an Amiga, allowing him to compose music with samples in it. He, along with his good friend and collaborator, Mikael Balle, became a member of the demo group Silents DK, and after some time started collaborating with a group of coders known as crionics, which would arguably later prove vital for his professional career. They eventually made the legendary Amiga demoscene production Hardwired.

He also created and scored the first wild demo, Global Trash 2, together with Mikael Balle.

Establishing his career

At this point Jesper Kyd decided to quit the demo scene and focus on a professional career as a game musician. He and his demoscene friends who had collaborated on the Hardwired demo created the computer game developer Zyrinx and started working on a game called Subterrania for the Sega Genesis. The game was successful and the music of the game received particular acclaim, many stating it was "Some of the best ever" for this particular system.

With the commercial success of the game, Jesper Kyd and the rest of the team relocated to Boston. Kyd composed music for two additional Zyrinx titles, Red Zone and Scorcher as well as the music for two externally developed games, Amok and The Adventures of Batman and Robin before their game publisher Scavenger went bankrupt, forcing the Zyrinx team to dissolve as well.

Going freelance

After the demise of Zyrinx, many of its former members returned to Denmark to start IO Interactive. Jesper Kyd decided to move to New York City and set up his own sound studio in Manhattan called "Nano studios". Because of his extensive connections in the industry, Kyd found success as a freelance computer game musician, a feat not easily achieved. He also had been planning to score upcoming games from IO Interactive from the beginning.

Breakthrough to Present

Jesper Kyd's real fame came, according to him, with the release of Bioware's MDK2: Armageddon, Shiny's Messiah and IO's Hitman: Codename 47 being released around the same time, all being fairly well-known games, with Hitman ending up as one of the most popular of the time. The soundtrack to Codename 47 was based on urban soundscapes and ethnic instrumentation. It immediately took the focus of many magazines around the world. Mp3.com declared that "The theme song to the original Hitman is arguably one of the best pieces of video game theme music so far this decade" .

His next huge step was recording the soundtrack of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. The soundtrack was recorded with 110 musicians of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Choir. “The music of most big budget action movies won’t move you like the music of Hitman 2,” said IGN .

His next soundtrack contained heroic and densely atmospheric music for the epic action/adventure Freedom Fighters. He recorded the score with the Hungarian Radio choir. It further established him as one of the leading, innovative A-list composers in interactive entertainment. It was described by Film Score Monthly Magazine as "Vangelis on steroids". Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards nominated him for Best Use of Soundtrack, meanwhile, Game Audio Network Guild Awards nominated him for "Best Original Vocal Song – Choral" (for Main Title and March of the Empire). Leading video game web site GameSpot awarded Freedom Fighters "Best Music of the Year".

His unique fusion of modern electronica and brooding symphonic and choral grooves featured in Hitman: Contracts garnered international critical acclaim as one of the truly groundbreaking original soundtracks. It was awarded Best Original Music by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts at the 2005 BAFTA Games Awards and won Best Cinematic / Cut-Scene Audio at the 2005 G.A.N.G. Awards. "Many have tried to turn a video game soundtrack into a musical experience. But few have succeeded in creating a coherent, satisfying listening experience as well as Jesper Kyd," noted EQ Magazine .

Kyd's other works include the modern anime video game soundtrack for Robotech: Invasion, the cinematics for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory directed by Andy Davis and the soundtrack of Hitman: Blood Money, which features a bombastic live orchestral and choral score recorded with 150 musicians of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir, with additional electronic music. His upcoming works include the fantasy MMORPG The Chronicles Of Spellborn, and the sci-fi epic Unreal Tournament 3. He is also scoring next generation titles for Ubisoft and Eidos Interactive.

Jesper currently lives in Los Angeles and is writing his own album, "Deftronic", which is described as a cinematic electronic music album. The album's been produced by Jesper himself and co-produced by Jeff Blenkinsopp, who worked with Pink Floyd, The Who, ELP & Vangelis.

Works

As noted above Kyd has composed music for many different forms of visual and non-visual media, below is a run-down of his works. See the Navbox at the bottom of the page also. He feels that the gap between grand movie score and incidental game score is now closing and he is trying to show that game music can be as epic as any good movie score.

Games

• 2008 - The Chronicles of Spellborn
• 2008 - The Club
• 2007 - Assassin's Creed
• 2007 - Unreal Tournament 3
• 2007 - Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
• 2006 - Hitman: Blood Money
• 2006 - Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
• 2006 - Gears of War
• 2004 - Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 2 (songs .59 -remix-, Istanbul café, and Red Room)
• 2004 - Robotech: Invasion
• 2004 - Hitman: Contracts
• 2004 - Todd McFarlane's Evil Prophecy
• 2003 - Freedom Fighters
• 2003 - Brute Force
• 2002 - Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
• 2002 - Minority Report: The Video Game
• 2001 - MDK2: Armageddon
• 2001 - Hitman: Codename 47
• 2001 - Shattered Galaxy
• 2001 - The Nations: Alien Nations 2
• 2000 - Messiah
• 2000 - Lightweight Ninja
• 2000 - Soldier (unreleased)
• 1999 - Time Tremors
• 1996 - Scorcher
• 1996 - Amok
• 1995 - Adventures of Batman and Robin
• 1994 - Red Zone
• 1993 - Subterrania
• 1993 - AWS Pro Moves Soccer
• 1989 - USS John Young

Movies

• Sweet Insanity (2006)
• Impulse (2005)
• Pure (2005)
• Death of a Saleswoman (2005)
• La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928, new score)
• Cycle (2003)
• Day Pass (2002)
• Night All Day (2000)

Short Films

• Paper Plane Man (Tobias Nolle)
• Going with Neill (Tobias Nolle)
• Organizm (Tobias Nolle)
• The Lion Tamer (Frederikke Aspock)

TV shows

• Play (Intro music)

Awards and nominations

• 2008 ELAN Awards - Best Video Game Score Winner
• 2007 GameSpot - Best Video Game Score Nomination
• 2007 3 G.A.N.G. Nominations Including Music of the Year
• 2006 MTV Video Music Awards - Best Video Game Score Nomination
• 2006 IGN Best Original Score Winner
• 2006 Golden Joystick Awards - Best Game Soundtrack Nomination
• 2006 4 G.A.N.G. Nominations Including Music of the Year
• 2005 BAFTA - Winner Best Original Music Award (British Academy Award)
• 2005 G.A.N.G. Winner Best Music for Cinamatic/Cut Scene
• 2005 PSE2 Editor's Choice GOLD - Freedom Fighters Soundtrack CD
• 2004 Billboard Awards Best Music Nomination 2004
• 2004 IGN - Best Soundtrack Nomination
• 2004 3 G.A.N.G. Nominations
• 2004 PSE2 Editor's Choice GOLD - Hitman Contracts Soundtrack CD
• 2003 GameSpot - Best Soundtrack of the Year Winner
• 2003 Game Reactor - 2003 Best Original Soundtrack Winner
• 2003 PSE2 Editor's Choice GOLD - Hitman 2 Soundtrack CD
• 2002 Games Agent - Best Original Soundtrack Winner
• 2002 GameSpot - Best Original Soundtrack Of The Year Nomination
• 2002 X-Sages - Soundtrack Of The Year Nomination
• 2002 IGN - Best Sound Nomination
• 2002 Action Vault - Outstanding Achievement In Music
• 2002 Bolt Games - Bolt Games Music Award

Quotes

When writing music for films, you have to pay close attention to what happens on the screen 100% of the time and so it's difficult to fit lots of crazy ideas into a film score. For games I like to add lots of subconscious elements in order to further develop the game’s atmosphere. My job as a game composer is to immerse the player in the world and enhance the vision of the director and producers.

- On the difference between scoring for movies and games.

When working with US companies I sometimes have to be careful not to go crazy with over-using electronics and dance beats. European and Canadian developers seem to respect and enjoy these type of influences more.

- On the difference between working with European and American developers.

External links

• Official website
• Official forum
• Official MySpace
• Jesper Kyd discography at MusicBrainz
• MobyGames rap sheet
• Composer profile at OverClocked ReMix
• Interview at Tracksounds
• Interview at SoundtrackNet
• Interview at Go! Game Music
• Interview at BSOSpirit
• Interview at SpelMusik
• A very interesting insight into Kyd's demoscene days with a video from 1991 he did the music for
• A more in depth look at his career including his demoscene days