Tommy Tallarico Studios

Tommy Tallarico is a veritable video game industry icon. As one of the most successful video game composers in history, he has helped revolutionize the gaming world, creating unique audio landscapes that enhance the video gaming experience. He is considered the person most instrumental in changing the game industry from bleeps & bloops to real music now appreciated worldwide by millions of fans. As a well-recognized on-air television personality, Tommy brings his in-depth knowledge, years of experience, and love of multimedia and video games to the masses.An accomplished musician, Tallarico has been writing music for video games for more than 16 years. He has won over 25 industry awards for best video game audio and has worked on more than 250 game titles; to date, they total sales of more than 100 million units and over four billion dollars in revenue. In 1994, he founded Tommy Tallarico Studios, the multimedia industry's largest audio production house. In video games, television, film, radio, soundtracks, toys and even on floats in the New Years Day Rose Parade in Pasadena CA, Tallarico’s music has been heard by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Tommy is a cousin of rockstar legend Steven Tyler (nee Tallarico) and in 2002 Tallarico’s music was used as the opening song for Aerosmith’s “Girls of Summer” world tour. His top titles include Disney’s Aladdin, Earthworm Jim, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Spider-Man, Metroid Prime and Advent Rising as well as top selling popular game franchises such as Madden Football, Blitz Football, Unreal, Pac-Man, Knockout Kings, Mortal Kombat, Twisted Metal & Time Crisis. His score for Advent Rising has been noted as "one of the greatest musical scores of all time" by websites such as Yahoo, Gamespot and others.Tallarico has been featured on numerous national and international television shows, appearing repeatedly on CNN and MTV. Currently, Tommy hosts, writes and co-produces the top rated and very popular Judgment Day/Reviews on the Run television show as well as the longest running award-winning video game television show, The Electric Playground (www.elecplay.com), which has been on the air since 1997. The show is syndicated worldwide and airs daily in prime-time. The Electric Playground won the 2001 Telly Award for “Best Entertainment Cable Program”.Tallarico has teamed up with fellow video game composer Jack Wall to form Mystical Stone Entertainment, a front runner in the field of live game music performance. Mystical Stone has created the critically acclaimed Video Games Live (www.videogameslive.com), an immersive, audio and video concert experience celebrating video games. Video Games Live features music from the best video games performed by top orchestras and choirs across the world combined with synchronized video footage, lasers, lights, interactivity and live action to create an explosive and unique entertainment experience. The debut performance launched on July 6th, 2005 at the world famous Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic. Over 11,000 people attended making it the biggest video game concert in the world. Most of the game music played (Halo, Sonic, Metal Gear Solid, Mario, Zelda, Warcraft, Tomb Raider, Kingdom Hearts, Tron, Medal of Honor, Advent Rising, etc.) had never been performed live. On October 30, 2005 they broke new ground once again by putting on the very first video game concert in Canada (Vancouver). The Video Games Live concert event is currently touring the world.Tallarico was the first musician to release a video game soundtrack worldwide (Tommy Tallarico’s Greatest Hits Vol. 1 – Capitol Records). He has released six video game soundtrack albums since, including the highly acclaimed James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies and Advent Rising. He has written, produced and recorded with a wide range of talented musicians including the LA Philharmonic, Hollywood Studio Symphony, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Chamber Choir, the band “Fear Factory" and guitarist Dweezil Zappa. Tommy was the first person to use live guitar in a video game and 3-D audio (The Terminator) and was instrumental in bringing true digital interactive 5.1 surround to the gaming world. Tommy has worked in the gaming industry as a games tester, product manager, producer, writer, designer and heads of both music and video departments. From 1991 to 1994, he headed Virgin Interactive’s music and video division, and executive produced numerous video game “green screen shoots” for films including “Demolition Man” with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.Tommy is the founder and president of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), which is a non-profit organization educating and heightening the awareness of audio for the interactive world (www.audiogang.org). With over 1,200 members since it's inception and major corporate sponsorship, G.A.N.G. has quickly become known as one of the strongest and best examples of helping the game industry community. Each year during the Game Developers Conference Tommy produces the annual G.A.N.G. awards revered by many as one of the best award shows in the industry. Tommy is an Advisory Board member for the Game Developers Conference, a Governor for the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS/Grammy), a proud member of the International Game Developers Association and a nominating peer panel leader for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.Tallarico has appeared in myriad magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. In 1999, he helped secure official recognition of video game music by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and the Grammy’s. Also in 1999 he co-designed the award winning boxing game “Knockout Kings” for the N64 with Electronic Arts which went on to win the “Best Console Sports Product of 1999” by the A.I.A.S.Tommy has consulted for Fortune 500 companies such as Intel, Sony, Microsoft and Apple as well as audio companies including DTS, Dolby, Roland, THX and Creative Labs. He has given lectures and speeches all over the world on audio and video games which include his keynote at the 1999 Game Developers Conference, and 2000 MILIA (the multimedia conference in Cannes, France). He also teaches courses and has been the guest speaker at many schools, organizations & universities such as UCLA, USC & Full Sail University.The IDG video game industry white paper mentions Tommy (along with Bill Gates) as one of the people who contributed the most to the advancement and growth of the industry in 2003. In 2004 he performed the grand finale music act on national and worldwide television (E! Entertainment, G4TV) with BT & Mobius 8 for the G-Phoria video games award show.###