Composer on 30 Years of Wing Commander III (or: It's Tough Getting Oldziey)

Wing Commander III composer George Odziey has posted a memory on Facebook in honor of the game's 30th anniversary. And if there's one person who deserves to celebrate that milestone it's George--he's remained so active with the fandom and we're expecting the second volume of his orchestral Wing Commander recordings early next year!

Thirty years ago I was living in Austin, TX scratching out a living playing piano gigs, teaching some piano lessons and teaching the jazz band PT at Southwestern University. I happened to bump into sax player/arranger-composer and great guy Paul Baker who told me he'd been hired to score video games for EA/Origin. I was intrigued and thought to myself, "I could do that", having never done it before and barely knowing how to use a computer. Paul graciously accepted a demo cassette tape that I threw together and submitted it to Chris Roberts' development team at Origin who just happened to be looking for a composer for Wing Commander 3. A week later I got a call and was hired to score this huge title, not knowing that it also required hours of music for movies (cutscenes), which I also hadn't done before. Baptism by fire! They hired me in February of '94 and the game shipped right after Thanksgiving with about 4 hours of music!

That opportunity basically created a brand new career for me as a game, and ultimately film composer and orchestrator. I can't say enough about how blessed I feel that after 30 years of working in games and film and utltimately joining the faculty at Berklee College of Music I can now look back at that time so fondly, working with such incredible people, and realize we created something truly special.

Ten years ago I got to finally record much of that music with an orchestra and choir in Bratislava (see the video) the way I'd originally imagined it. I just wrapped a similar process in Budapest (orchestra) and Salt Lake City (choir) for volume 2, which will be mixed by the lengendary Bruce Botnick.

Life is good!!

That's beautiful, George! One way or another, everything works out, doesn't it? Keep on thriving my man– – you've earned it!