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Orchestrator Emulator
Street Date: July 18, 2025
Label: Teamchuck Records

GRAMMY-award-winning composer, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Rosen is proud to announce the fifth full-length album by The 8-Bit Big Band, Orchestrator Emulator. A fitting title for an unconventional release, Orchestrator Emulator features exploratory arrangements of video game music performed by the contemporary big band and a studio orchestra—made up of over 90 of NYC’s finest musicians.

Rosen is known for his work on Broadway, film, and TV, with over a couple dozen credits as composer, orchestrator, musical director, and instrumentalist. But with the 8-Bit Big Band, founded in 2017, the composer has made a name for himself for bucking jazz convention with his video-game-music inspiration, with two GRAMMY nominations and one win. As written in All About Jazz after a performance at Berklee in 2020, “Rosen and his 8-Bit Big Band demonstrated an astoundingly rich and complex selection of arrangements for orchestra, taken from simpler video game themes, that exploded the boundaries of jazz innovation.”

The 8-Bit Big Band has evolved from an innovative concept to a full-fledged internet phenomenon since its inception over 8 years ago. With nearly 400,000 followers across their YouTube channel and Instagram, the ensemble has captured the attention of both gaming and music communities alike. Their meticulously crafted music videos consistently attract millions of views. This virality has translated to real-world success, with the band selling out major concert venues throughout the Northeast. The group's distinctive approach has garnered recognition from prominent media outlets including NPR, the New York Times, and Forbes, with Jazziz declaring that the 8-Bit Big Band "is redefining the concept of a modern big band." Their growing influence culminated in a 2022 GRAMMY Award for Rosen and Jake Silverman in the Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella category for "Meta Knight's Revenge" from their acclaimed third album, Backwards Compatible.

Gamers know that video-game and orchestral music are not as strange of bedfellows as one might think. While games today have come a long way from their 8-bit era, even in their earliest formats, titles from popular franchises such as Pokémon, Super Mario Bros, and The Legend of Zelda have soundtracks ripe for embellishment. As The New York Times noted, “Over four albums that have earned two Grammy nominations, Rosen's crack ensemble has contributed hard swing, fusion funk, quicksilver arrangements and a slick symphonic sheen to what Rosen has called the ‘great video game songbook,’ a canon he is helping create on the fly.” Newer games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8, sample both acoustic and electronic instruments, and various game soundtracks have been arranged for orchestra in the past. But Rosen’s works for the 8-Bit Big Band have and continue to reveal how the expansiveness of the jazz palette affords those soundtracks that much more depth.

After a quick intro that “functions like a cinematic prelude,” Orchestrator Emulator kicks off with “Wii Sports Theme,” which Rosen describes as “one of the most iconic and beloved themes from the Nintendo Wii era.” The version, which features soloists Brian Sheu on guitar and Andrew Gould on alto sax, pays tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “In the Stone,” channeling Jerry Hey’s legendary horn writing. Drawing on the inimitable funk and disco-infused brass brilliance of the influential group, Rosen effortlessly illustrates how the playful theme can be seamlessly threaded into those genres.

Specifically calling out to the generations who grew up playing video games, Rosen likens the video-game-music repertoire to the The Great American Songbook, saying, “[The genre has] ushered in a new era of appreciation from music lovers … Within this contemporary ‘song book,’ there exists a wide array of communally recognizable themes, lyrics, and melodies that can be reimagined and expanded upon in new and inventive ways.”

Orchestrator Emulator is a shining example of Rosen’s ability to reimagine and invent. Lifelong and amateur gamers alike are sure to recognize the themes orchestrated throughout the album, but will also notice how the composer playfully blurs the lines between the original melodies and his own expansions upon them. Take, for example, “Kass’s Theme”—a song from the soundtrack of 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, “performed” in the game by an anthropomorphic parrot-like character on his accordion. Rosen orchestrates an entirely new, Afro-Cuban terrain for the melody with incredible movement.

Other selections on the album include themes from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Metroid, Persona 5, Undertale, and various iterations of Super Mario Bros. “Waluigi Pinball,” from the Mario Kart DS soundtrack, features virtuosic organist Matthew Whitaker on Hammond B3. The arrangement pays homage to Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon,” transforming the racing theme into a groove-heavy jam.

“No More What Ifs,” a bossa nova ballad from the already genre-blending soundtrack of Persona 5, features vocalist Martina DaSilva. Here, Rosen elevates the intoxicating original by adding new dimensions to the harmony with the wider range of instrumentalists at his disposal. DaSilva is the perfect complement.

From the 2015 indie game Undertale, known in part by its cult following and subsequent influx of memes, “Megalovania” infuses some villainous energy into Orchestrator Emulator, opening with overdriven guitar power chords before the low brass enters with the theme. As Rosen puts it, the arrangement, which features a ripping metal solo by Marcos Robinson, combines epic film score bombast with the drive of Rage Against the Machine. “With three bass trombones, a cimbasso, bass sax, tuba, French horns, and a full complement of trumpets and trombones, the low brass sound is truly seismic,” he says.

On the second to last track—before a reprise of “Kass’s Theme”—Rosen revisits Super Mario Bros., this time with a medley of some of the most memorable themes from the Super Mario universe. “Super Mario Praise Break,” co-produced by Matthew Whitaker and GRAMMY/TONY-award-winning arranger Bryan Carter, is a joyous, church-like celebration of the “sacred space video games have created for so many as a place of escape, of comfort, and of community.”

Like its predecessors, Orchestrator Emulator was arranged and produced by Rosen himself, mixed by GRAMMY-winning engineer John Kilgore and mastered by the industry veteran Alan Silverman.

The 8-Bit Big Band’s mission has always been to “elevate the music of video games to its rightful place in the world of serious musical artistry.” Rosen so eloquently states, “These songs, once confined to background loops and limited sound chips, deserve to be reimagined, revered, and performed with the same respect given to any great work of American music. This album is our continued effort to build what we’ve come to call ‘The Great Video Game Songbook.’”

Game Changer
Street Date: November 10, 2023
Label: Teamchuck Records

GRAMMY NOMINEE

Game Changer features reimagined classics from the soundtracks of Super Mario 3D World (“Super Bell Hill”), Final Fantasy 7 (“Tifa’s Theme”), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (“Song of Storms”), and other classic games across major platforms.

The 8-Bit Big Band’s fourth dispatch contains even more first-call musicians from the New York jazz scene. “You Wouldn’t Know,” from Lego Dimensions: Portal, features the acclaimed trumpeter and vocalist Benny Benack III. “Tifa’s Theme,” from Final Fantasy 7, features luminous trumpeter Chloe Rowlands of Westerlies fame, “Song of Storms” features the incredible Patrick Bartley, and “Last Surprise” featuring keyboard player and vocalist phenom Jonah Nilsson of the band Dirty Loops.

The guests on Game Changer also hail from the highest echelons of theater. After “Intro to Album 4,” a magisterial overture reminiscent of mid-century Broadway, vocalist Joel Waggoner brings a Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra-style panache to “Can You Feel the Sunshine?” from the 1997 Sega Saturn game “Sonic R.”

“I Wanna Take You For a Ride” hails from the seminal fighting game “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” — well, an eight-second loop of music therein, in which a woman sings the title on repeat, which has become something of a viral meme among gamers.

“When you’re selecting your character, there’s a four-bar loop,” Rosen explains. In response, “I had this idea of, What would the rest of the song sound like? If that is one line of the chorus, it would be cool to write the rest of the song.” The resultant horn arrangement channels the punch of the Bay Area R&B legends Tower of Power co-written with the up and coming contemporary funk/soul band Lawrence.

Gamers of all stripes know “Pollyanna,” which originates from the “Earthbound/Mother” game franchise. From its original context in an ‘80s synth pop idiom Rosen cannily pivoted to ripping gospel and R&B. “It’s very beloved in the video game world because the lyrics are incredibly positive,” Rosen says. “And so life-affirming that I thought it would be a great contemporary gospel tune.”

While Rosen is blazingly adept at stylistic cross-pollinations, he knows when to avoid messing with the formula, and play it straight. As such, he lifted “Super Bell Hill” from “Super Mario 3D World”; the 8-Bit Big Band performed it essentially a la carte.

“It’s not that big of a difference from the original,” Rosen says. “The more contemporary Mario games have already skewed toward having a lot of big band in their soundtrack, and this is just a nod to Nintendo’s recent developments.”

As he puts it in Game Changer’s liner notes, the format “matches quite well orchestrationally with the bright and colorful world of Super Mario.” And if you survey the 8-Bit Big Band’s discography, you’ll find other examples, like “Jump Up Superstar”; “Super Bell Hill” further illustrates the nexus of big band and the Mushroom Kingdom.

Old compatriot Benny Benack III, a renowned trumpeter and vocalist on the New York scene, joins the 8-Bit Big Band for “You Wouldn’t Know,” a witty selection from “Portal.” (The eagle-eyed gamer may remember that Benack crooned “Want You Gone,” from “Portal 2,” on the 8-Bit Big Band’s previous album, 2021’s Backwards Compatible.)

Like all the other songs from the “Portal” universe, “You Wouldn’t Know” was written by the great Jonathan Coulton. Once again, Rosen assumed the role of the transmuter, and flipped the script on “You Wouldn’t Know” from indie rock to big band jazz — this time modeled after Dean Martin’s arrangement of “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.”

Featuring guest vocalist Aisha Jackson and guitar soloist Nir Felder, “Beneath the Mask” is a selection from the score of “Persona 5”; like its neighbors within the popular game, it’s a heady mix of neo-soul, jazz and funk. Rosen opted to push it beyond the boundaries of what he calls “a very chill background music theme,” and render it a hard-hitting big-band number — with abundant neo-soul flavor, as a nod to the original.

Within the DNA of “Mabe Village” — a music-box-style lullaby from 1993’s “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening” — Rosen perceived malleability. He spliced it with the approach of the legendary trumpeter, composer and arranger Neal Hefti — particularly the epochal “Lil’ Darlin,” originally recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra; trombonist Jimmy O’Connell contributes an inspired solo.

Composer Nobuo Uematsu looms large in the gaming realm, particularly for his contributions to the “Final Fantasy” series. From his canon, Rosen pulled “Tifa’s Theme,” a love overture from “Final Fantasy 7.” Soulful and sweet, the 8-Bit Big Band’s interpretation features Chloe Rowlands on flugelhorn, and a lavish string orchestra.

“Passing Breeze” reaches deeper into the past; it’s from “Outrun,” a graphically innovative racing game popular in arcades in the late 1980s. “The game has you cruising down the beaches of the West Coast,” Rosen describes; its engine is Jared Schonig, who lays down head-spinning solos.

“The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” resonated with a generation of gamers; by way of “Song of Storms,” Rosen saw fit to tip his hat to that classic title utilizing Patrick Bartley’s absolutely bombastic alto sax vocabulary. Again, he nudged it in a new direction — from the 3/4 sea shanty vibe of the original to a modal, post-bop feel a la Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter.

The album concludes thrillingly with “Last Surprise” — another selection from “Persona 5,” along with the aforementioned “Beneath The Mask”. The track is a co-arrangement with Button Masher — who won a GRAMMY in 2021 for his collaboration with the 8-Bit Big Band, “Meta Knight’s Revenge.”

Rosen and Button Masher tailored this arrangement for the virtuosic singer and keyboardist Jonah Nilsson, from the Swedish fusion group Dirty Loops — who have made waves on Jazz Internet for their reharmonized arrangements of contemporary pop music.

Game Changer was arranged and produced by Rosen himself — not only a GRAMMY winner, but a two-time Tony recipient. It was mixed by GRAMMY-winning engineer John Kilgore and mastered by the industry veteran Alan Silverman. Whether you’re more on the jazz or gaming side of the equation, Game Changer has something for you — context aside, it’s simply fantastic music played with imagination, virtuosity and panache.

“Every album, it gets tighter and tighter, and the band sounds better and better, and the quality goes up and up,” Rosen says with a smile. “And Game Changer is definitely no exception.”

Backwards Compatible
Street Date: January 8, 2021
Label: Teamchuck

GRAMMY NOMINEE

Backwards Compatible is the latest release by The 8-Bit Big Band. Their third full length release, Backwards Compatible expands this ever growing contemporary body of music with a symphonic orchestra made up of over 70 of New York City’s finest musicians. Musical Director and newly minted Tony nominee Charlie Rosen arranged and produced the project’s 13 imaginative renditions of some of the world's most popular video game music.

Special guests include Grace Kelly, Adam Neely, Benny Benack III, Leo P., Zac Zinger, Sam Dillon, Steven Feifke, Andrew Gould, Tiffany Mann, and the vocal sextet Accent. Backwards Compatible was mixed by GRAMMY award winning engineer John Kilgore, and mastered by engineering veteran Alan Silverman, who has worked on more than 80 GRAMMY nominated or winning albums throughout his career. Backwards Compatible features a winning musical combination: melodies that are instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever traversed through immersive game worlds, and dazzling arrangements, with impeccable musicianship that will appeal to music lovers across the board.

Since its inception in 2017, the 8-Bit Big Band has become a viral sensation. Their fully produced music videos, regularly uploaded to their YouTube channel, has aggregated over 9 Million views, and over 200,000 subscribers, followers, and listeners across the globe, selling out large-scale concert venues in New York City and Boston to date. The ensemble was founded by Charlie Rosen, who at the age of 30, already has 11 Broadway shows, and countless Off-Broadway and regional productions under his belt. A man of many talents, Rosen has worn the musical hats of arranger, orchestrator, music director, pit musician, and music supervisor. This year, he received his first Tony Award nomination - for his orchestrating work on the Broadway production Moulin Rouge.

He has long seen video game music as the perfect vehicle to reach a broader audience, and introduce listeners to the jazz artform. With over 1.2 billion gamers in the world, Rosen surely has a point. “As a lifelong gamer who also grew up listening to the best in orchestral and big band music, I see the music of many video games as musically equivalent to other great works of music set to media such as film scores and broadway shows,” said Rosen last year ahead of their sold out concert at Sony Hall earlier this year. “Many carry the same quality of melody and composition when it comes to quality, scope, and emotional appeal for audiences. The crowd reaction when we play our versions of themes from favorites such as Mario, Tetris, and Legend of Zelda is overwhelming, not just because it’s amazing music on its own, but also because of the strong memories and nostalgia evoked in an audience that played these games throughout childhood. I truly believe that video game music deserves to be included in a ‘New American Songbook,’ just like classic film and Broadway music has been canonized by the Golden Age American Songbook.” In a 2019 New York Times feature, journalist Elizabeth Harris notes “Mr. Rosen exists as a sort of bridge between genres and generations, embracing Broadway standards, pop songs and the music of Tetris.”

Backwards Compatible explores musical selections that were prominently featured in iconic video games without sacrificing one iota of the band’s focus on stunning musicality. This awe-inspiring release begins with “The Chrono Trigger Main Theme”, a reimagined arrangement of the theme from the 1995 game Chrono Trigger. Taking a nod from the Jaco Pastorius track “Kuru/Speak Like a Child”, the album begins with improvised lines from all of the players growing into an expansive soundscape featuring pianist Steven Feifke blazing through this tribute to electric big band jazz fusion. Featuring the vibrant Grace Kelly on alto sax, the band tackles a Tower of Power inspired funk arrangement of “Hydrocity Zone” from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994).

Featuring celebrated vocalist and trumpeter Benny Bennack III crooning in the style of Frank Sinatra and soloing on trumpet, the band gives a rousing rendition of “Want You Gone” from the popular game Portal 2 (2011). The band displays its virtuosity in a powerful Arabic-tinged, metal-infused jazz fusion performance of “Super Mario Land Underground” from Super Mario Land (1989) with a boundary pushing performance on the baritone sax by the inimitable Leo P.

Rosen demonstrates his stellar musicianship on the bass with a Jaco-inspired introduction and melody to the popular soundtrack selection “Dire Dire Docks” from Super Mario 64 (1996). Zac Zinger is featured on the EWI in a smooth big band rendition of “Birdman” from the game Pilot Wings 64 (1996). This lush arrangement is followed by a mesmerising performance by vocal jazz sextet Accent on a contemporary jazz version of “Lost in Thoughts All Alone” from Fire Emblem: Fates (2015).

Bass player and composer Adam Neely is featured as a soloist on a nimble orchestral jazz arrangement of the game music standard “Saria’s Song” from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (1998), which is followed by a dazzlingly dynamic and powerful vocal performance from the amazing Tiffany Mann on the James Bond inspired “Snake Eater” from Metal Gear Solid 3 (2004). To take us into the end of our journey, Grace Kelly delivers an uplifting and jubilant take on the new modern game music hit “Jump Up Super Star” from Super Mario Odyssey (2017), followed by a farewell from the band with a classic swing big band take on the “End Theme from Super Mario World” (1990).

In the words of Charlie Rosen, “This album was born as a collaboration between a collection of some of the most creative, talented, and open-hearted artists and musicians that gathered together to showcase that when performed with heart and skill, Video Game Music deserves to take its place alongside other legendary bodies of musical work. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we did creating, and long live Video Game Music!”

The 8-Bit Big Band is a 33-member jazz/pops orchestra formed by Charlie Rosen to celebrate and realize some of the best musical themes of various video games from a multitude of consoles and eras. The members of the 8-Bit Big Band come from all around the world, with most residing primarily in New York City, and are some of the most highly sought-after musicians and performers internationally. Many are all gamers at heart who enjoy playing many of the titles whose music they performed.

Recently featured in Forbes Magazine, the 8-Bit Big Band is redefining the concept of the modern big band. Comprised of 33 top musicians (many of which are gamers themselves), Rosen’s extraordinary endeavor celebrates the breadth and richness of music from globally sensational video game franchises like Super Mario Brothers, the Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and more in a way that is spellbinding. They have consistently sold out shows across the United States; most recently, at New York City’s Sony Hall this past January. In October, the 8 Bit Big Band made their first appearance in Boston at the Berklee Performance Center and filled every seat.

Since its inception, the 8-Big Band has become a viral sensation. Their fully produced music videos, regularly uploaded to their YouTube channel, rack up tens to hundreds of thousands of views. Currently, the channel boasts nearly 80,000 subscribers and has garnered over 3M cumulative views in the past year. In May of 2018, the 8-Bit Big Band released its first album, Press Start!, which features the music of the Super Mario series, the Legend of Zelda series, Ganbare Goemon, F-Zero, and Final Fantasy. In June 2019, the band released its second album Choose Your Character, which includes music from Donkey Kong Country, Duck Tales, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pokemon, Portal and more from Super Mario Series, The Legend of Zelda and Tetris.

“As a lifelong gamer who also grew up listening to the best in orchestral and big band music, I see the music of many video games as musically equivalent to other great works of music set to media such as film scores and broadway shows. Many carry the same quality of melody and composition when it comes to quality, scope, and emotional appeal for audiences. The crowd reaction when we play our versions of themes from favorites such as Mario, Tetris, and Legend of Zelda is overwhelming, not just because it’s amazing music on its own, but also because of the strong memories and nostalgia evoked in an audience that played these games throughout childhood. I truly believe that video game music deserves to be included in a ‘New American Songbook,’ just like classic film and Broadway music has been canonized by the Golden Age American Songbook,” Rosen says.

MATT MICUCCI
JAZZIZ
Bandleader/multi-instrumentalist Charlie Rosen has shared the latest video for his 8-Bit Big Band project, with which he performs original arrangements of music from some of the world’s most popular video games. This time, the band he has gathered for this very special user-generated video may be the largest virtual big band ever created, as it features 664 musicians from 40 different countries. Together, the perform a version of “Lifelight” from Super Smash Brothers. Read the full feature here.

STEPHEN MOSHER
BROADWAYWORLD
Name: Charlie Rosen
What show were you working on when the quarantine started?
I had a few things in the works; my orchestrations could be heard each night in Moulin Rouge on broadway, and I had just finished orchestrating a few musicals which were premiering in NYC or out of town that had their sights set on Broadway for the near future, as well as in the development of some other new shows looking to start their journey to a Broadway theater as well. Read the full feature here.

PIOTR PALLARDY
STAR REVUE
"Much in the same way as the madeleines that Proust wrote about so many years ago would involuntarily conjure memories from a single bite, hearing video game melodies takes me back to the safety of my childhood living room floor, to hours spent cross-legged, lost in digital adventures scored to these enduring songs. This is the power of the music of the 8 Bit Big Band, a 35-plus-piece jazz pops orchestra that performs and brings to life these tunes like never before." Full show review here.