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Brazil hosts the second edition of Game Music Brazil Festival, the biggest festival of composing soundtracks for games and game development of the country.

Free subscriptions on the website www.gamemusicbrasil.com.br start on May 14th until September 9th.

In 2012 for the first time the Grammy Awards, biggest international award of the music industry, had videogame soundtracks competing side by side with songs composed for cinema or even television shows. What broadened the minds of the event producers about including the game music industry on the Grammy Awards was the trophy won by the song Baba Yetu, from the game Civilization IV, on 2011 Grammy Awards, six years after its launching. This gesture shows the acknowledgement that videogame soundtracks are as elaborated as the ones composed for the big screen, in addition of having a fundamental role of complementing the narrative of the game and bring emotion to the player`s game experience.

In Brazil, intending to warn the musical industry of game music`s growth, takes place in May the second edition of the biggest national festival of soundtracks composing for electronic games: Game Music Brazil Festival, produced by Conexão Cultural. The competition has four categories: best soundtrack, best indie game, best chip tune and best remix. The edition also includes a new statute. “The objective of Game Music Brazil is to make musicians find this new market out, which is growing every year”, says Sergio Murilo de Carvalho, owner of Conexão Cultural and creator of the event. In 2011, the game industry has dealt with US$24 billion of income worldwide, after data released by the American research company NPD.

About Game Music Brazil:

The subscriptions to take part in the festival go from May 14th to September 9th on the website www.gamemusicbrasil.com.br. People from all over the country will be able to sign up for free to compete. The first Phase will have open voting in order to select its winners and the poll ends on September 20th. On September 30th, through the voting of a specialized jury (composed by 10 musicians, jornalists, workers on the music industry and of the game industry), will be chosen the winners of each category. Their performances live Will happen during the Video Games Live concert in São Paulo on October 14th.

In the category Best Soundtrack the contestants have to come up with a soundtrack to games that will be available on GMB’s website and developed by the companies Hoplon and Swordtales. They’re to be released by the end of the year. To take part in the contest, the competitors have to sign upo n the website, download a teaser of the game chosen to compose for, record the soundtrack and upload a video on his or her profile on the website. The video must show the soundtrack in sync with the game images previously available.

On the category Best Indie Game the competitor has to develop and post a video sampler of his or her game on GMB website. Will be assigned grades to gameplay, graphics, soundtrack and other questions.

One of the new categories in 2012’s edition of the festival is Best Chip Music. The chiptunes are songs that remind old school videogame soundtracks. The contestant of this category must create a song inspired on the sounds that the classic 4, 8 and 16 bits consoles used to do. The composition gotta be original, with no possibility of covers and remixes of pre existing songs. This category evaluation topics will be arrangement, melody, use of the main characteristics of chip tune music and innovation on the choice of the musical style. The first phase of evaluation will be popular poll and the second phase will count on specialists to decide who’s the winner.

The second debutant category in this edition of the festival is Best Remix. To participate the competitor has to record a video remix of any existing soundtrack and post it to GMB’s website. The songs will be evaluated based on originality, arrangement, development and adaptation of the musical style, also with the popular poll and specialists choice phases.

The festival, still without a sponsor, has the support of da MTV, ACIGAMES, PUC RJ, PUC SP, PUC RS, TECNOPUC, UNICAP PE, Universidade Positivo Curitiba, Porto Digital PE, Jogos Digitais UNICAP PE e GANG – Games Audio Network Guild – USA – L.A.

About Conexão Cultural: company owned by the producer Sergio Murilo Carvalho, that has been working for over 30 years on the entertainment industry. Conexão Cultural has brought to Brazil the game music concert Video Games Live in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.