Peter Connelly’s Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony is now available
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London – Aug 17th, 2020 – 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of composer Peter Connelly’s first work on the Tomb Raider™ franchise. To celebrate this landmark event, Connelly launched a crowdfunding campaign (via Kickstarter) to produce a studio album featuring the music from Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. This campaign was organised entirely by a dedicated group of die-hard Tomb Raider™ fans and features world-class names within the music industry.
For nearly 20 years, Connelly and Tomb Raider™ fans dreamed of hearing these beloved musical scores on a fully mastered studio album. Now, thanks to the crowd-funding power of Kickstarter, they realised this dream.
Connelly worked with Ash Kaprielov, a dedicated Tomb Raider fan to successfully raise the funds and engage the audience with various messages and media that would resonate with gamers.
Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony’s budget was a whopping £170,000, made up from the Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/138635772/tomb-raider-the-dark-angel-symphony-reborn-in-shad/) combined with album pre-orders (totalling £70,000), with the remainder of the funds generously invested by Connelly and Kaprielov.
The album is not a direct copy of the original Tomb Raider™ games’ scores, although it remains faithful to those classic soundtracks. The music is transformed and rearranged using techniques and personnel that were simply not available 15–20 years ago. Connelly has revitalised his musical compositions and recordings and provides the listener, not only with a sense of nostalgia, but with fascinating new experiences of these familiar and much-loved tracks.
The original versions of Connelly’s pieces have also been lovingly remastered and beautifully presented as a tie-in with the new orchestral album, allowing the fans to enjoy the original scores in the best possible quality.
As a result, Connelly’s Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony consists of four ambitious albums in one beautiful package.
Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony is nowavailable as a digital download (Flac + MP3), through streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music and others), on CD, and on two double-sided vinyl records (the vinyl includes the new music only).
Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony has been in development for about five years. This project is unique in that it is driven and arranged entirely “by the fans, for the fans”, although it is sanctioned by Square Enix Europe and Crystal Dynamics.
Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony treats old and new fans alike to the finest musicians, sound engineers and arrangers in the world, including:
· Dr Richard Niles – Orchestrator / Arranger / Musician. “One of the most versatile men in modern music”, who has worked alongside musical legends such as Paul McCartney, the Pet Shop Boys (“Left to my Own Devices” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed1tv_gCOUA), Ray Charles, Cher, James Brown, Kylie Minogue, Tears for Fears (“Sowing The Seeds of Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAtGOESO7W8), Tina Turner, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Swing Out Sister, Take That, and Grammy- and Ivor Novello Award-winning producer Trevor Horn CBE (“The Man Who Invented The Eighties”).
· Isobel Griffiths – Orchestra contractor. A frequent collaborator of Richard Niles, she has also worked with Hans Zimmer, Howard Shaw, and James Horner (to name but a few) in hand-picking musicians for orchestral ensembles.
· Martin Iveson (Atjazz) – Musician, Composer, and Audio Production/ Mastering Martin is a specialist with a long history of working in videogames and the music industry.
· Tina Guo – Celebrity Solo Cellist. Guo is an internationally acclaimed, Grammy-nominated virtuoso acoustic/electric cellist, recording artist, and composer. She is regularly engaged by orchestras and venues around the globe, features in commercials and world tours, and has been a featured soloist in events such as the Cirque Du Soleil’s Michael Jackson “The Immortal” World Tour and the League of Legends’ World Championship in Los Angeles, streaming to an audience of over 33 million online. She is also notable as the soloist on electric cello creating the theme for Wonder Woman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice with Hans Zimmer. Guo has also worked on music for the Wonder Woman standalone film.
· Julie Elven – Solo Vocalist. Julie Elven is an award-winning soundtrack and film score vocalist based in Munich, Germany. She has featured alongside James Newton Howard and multiple orchestras, including the Czech National Orchestra, the North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, and the Malága Symphony Orchestra. She is best known for her solo vocal work on triple-A gaming titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn, World of Warcraft: Legion (plus many other famous titles by Blizzard Entertainment), Riot Games’ League of Legends, and more.
· Pete “MixMaster” Hammond – Composer and Sound Engineer. Active since 1974, Pete Hammond is known for mixing for Alphabeat, Kylie Minogue, Beyonce and other acts. He has remixed a dub track for Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony from Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness level Le Serpent Rouge.
The studio album was recorded at the prestigious Angel Studios, London. This state-of-the-art studio had the perfect facilities to achieve the album’s production requirements.
Artwork, promotional material, pledge rewards, websites and social media feeds, pamphlets and miscellany were also produced by Connelly’s team of Tomb Raider™ fans. Backers of the Kickstarter campaign were able to obtain rare and sought-after Tomb Raider™ merchandise and exclusive memorabilia.
For more information, please visit the Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony website www.trdarkangel.com
You can also visit, subscribe, and follow Tomb Raider: The Dark Angel Symphony on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (2003)
Released in 2003, TR: AoD was the final game produced by Derby-based Core Design. Despite development problems, it has become a cult favourite thanks in no small part to its mystery-driven, Gothic-noir story and powerful soundtrack. It was the first Tomb Raider™ game to feature a live orchestra, and its sweeping emotional grandeur remains respected and beloved by fans even 17 years after its debut.
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)
TR: TLR marked Connelly’s debut as a composer for Tomb Raider™ in 1999. It was the fourth title in the Tomb Raider™ franchise, and Connelly’s music perfectly complemented Lara Croft’s race-against-time odyssey across Egypt. Despite the limited audio technology available at the time, Connelly managed to bring a real emotional punch to Lara’s iconic musical theme and gave players an immersive and evocative audio experience that remains extremely popular to this day.
Tomb Raider: Chronicles (2000)
Although short compared to other Tomb Raider™ titles, TR:C provided Connelly with the challenge of creating four very different soundscapes across four entirely different chapters of Lara’s adventuring career, from Rome to a deep-sea submarine, from a high-tech skyscraper to a wind-swept Irish island.
Peter Connelly
www.peterconnelly.com
Connelly is a video game composer and sound designer, who has worked for developers Core Design, Slightly Mad Studios and Ubisoft. With over 30 titles to his name, he is perhaps best known as the composer and sound designer for Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles, and Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. His most recent credits include Driver: San Francisco, Watch Dogs, The Crew, Assassins Creed: Identity and South Park: The Fractured But Whole.
Dr Richard Niles
www.richardniles.com
Orchestrator / Arranger / Musician Described as “one of the most versatile men in modern music”, Niles’ skills elevated Connelly’s musical score to the highest possible level within the international music industry. He has worked alongside legends such as Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Cher, The Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue, Tears for Fears, Tina Turner, Cat Stevens, Swing Out Sister and Take That to name but a few. He has also worked extensively with Grammy and Ivor Novello Award-winning producer Trevor Horn CBE (“The Man Who Invented the Eighties”).
Martin Iveson
http://atjazz.co.uk
Co-composer for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, Iveson is a musician, composer, and audio production specialist with a long history of working in videogames. He was the co-composer of the score for Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and assisted Connelly mostly in the media production and distribution.
Ash Kaprielov
https://www.tomb-of-ash.com/
Executive Producer and Community Lead.
Named “Lara’s biggest fan” by Retrogamer Magazine, Kaprielov has a long history of assisting with and producing large-scale projects, especially within the Tomb Raider community, such as Replay Events’ Tomb Raider 20th Anniversary Core Design QA at Play Expo Manchester 2016.
He is coordinating activities, community engagement, resources, equipment, venues and information for The Dark Angel Symphony. Ash is acting as the point of contact and communicating project status adequately to all stakeholders. Developing and delivering an engagement strategy, campaigns and content. Taking over customer support queries and ensuring appropriate resources are allocated to the project.
Square Enix Europe
https://eu.square-enix.com
British video game publisher, acting as the European subsidiary of Square Enix (Japan).
Square Enix Europe owns such intellectual properties as Tomb Raider™, Deus Ex™ and Just Cause™.
Crystal Dynamics
https://crystald.com/
An American video game developer based in San Francisco. Crystal Dynamics has held the rights to develop Tomb Raider™ video games since 2003. Their debut Tomb Raider™ title, Tomb Raider: Legend, was released in 2006.
Media Contact
Company Name: Peter Connelly’s Tomb Raider
Contact Person: Peter Connelly
Email: Send Email
Phone: 832-302-3311
Country: United Kingdom
Website: https://trdarkangel.com/
