SO: My other two sisters, they just burned out. He actually died with- spark in me that enjoyed creating music. I quit teaching in 2014 to
out saying goodbye to them. They just disowned each other. There start composing full time. For the concert, I’m presenting a percussion
was no forgiveness there.
ensemble piece for a virtual reality game, and will include video from
the game. I’m using vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, and tubular
Have you been to Warsaw?
bells. I wanted to take my fundamental background with live instru-
SO: I’ve never been to Warsaw. I’ve been to Israel. I went to high ments and bring that music and style to video games.
school there.
Tell me more about Outhouse Games.
I happened to be in Warsaw during the 60th anniversary of the BB: Our fi rst three games were mobile games, and what money we
Warsaw Uprising. There was a really powerful set of events made really came from advertising, but the market got really saturat-
and commemorations that were happening at the time. I don’t ed, so now we’re working with virtual reality. We’re working on a VR
know if you know this—and this sounds a lot like your father’s game, called Ancient Remains, that’s set in ancient Egypt. We have
stubbornness—but the Poles were determined to rebuild and a team of fi ve right now. We have two artists, a programmer, and my
restore Warsaw brick-by-brick by brick to its pre-war condition husband integrates audio and I write the music. The game is coming
so that they effectively undid the damage done by the Nazis, out very soon.
and they were pretty close in 2004. I remember going to the
museum there and looking at wartime maps of troop maneu- A New York Times article from today said that “the popularity
vers, and you could easily see just how impossible their situ- of Sony’s Playstation VR surprised even the company. Execu-
ation was. While I was there, there was this palpable Polish tives at Sony were cautious about the VR headsets, but after
pride in having been resistant the entire time. And nearby, four months of robust sales, the skeptics are converting.” So, it
you look at Prague, it was completely untouched because they looks like VR is really on the rise. I’m surprised it wasn’t devel-
chose to not resist the Nazis at all. I got to have a conversa- oped faster than it was.
tion with a local, elderly Polish man who was there during the BB: There were some kinks to work out with things like the frame
uprising. We were in a main square in the city, and I still get rate. People used to sometimes feel seasick, like when you move
moved by retelling it. He pointed to a building across the street quickly, your eyes need to catch up with your brain or vice versa.
and said, “I watched a Canadian relief supply plane get shot That’s been eliminated. What we do is we teleport. You press a button
down and explode right there.”
and it shows an arc to where you’re going to go, and when you release
SO: My father actually wrote a book about the Warsaw ghetto and the button you’re there. The technology has come a very long way in
it’s fascinating.
the last three to four years.
Bethany, how did you get involved with the concert?
Bethany Borden: I met Sharon through the Central Florida Compos-
ers Forum a few months ago. When I fi rst joined the Central Florida
Composers Forum, I realized very quickly how many different ways
you can approach and compose music, and what a variety of talents
and skills we have within that group. Sharon and I started working
together to plan for this concert, and it’s really worked out because
not only have we been working on this event, but we’ve managed to
start making music together. We’ve collaborated on a spoken word
and piano piece that we’ll do on both concerts, a recitation of a Maya
Angelou poem called “Phenomenal Woman.” I got a degree in Music
Education from UCF. I was a voice major who also played trumpet in
the marching band and other ensembles. I taught music in OCPS for
ten years. But in 2013-14, my husband and his friend created a game
studio called Outhouse Games. We started with mobile games, and I
wrote a piano piece for our fi rst game, Stacker. And that reignited a
Orlando Arts & Culture, v. 2.4
Who else is involved with your concert?
SO: Composer and pianist Eric Brook is going to play a piece by Clara
Schumann called “Praludium II.” Chan Ji Kim, who is a professor at
the Eastern Florida State College, will present selections from a col-
lection of short pieces based on children’s nighttime stories and lul-
labies, performed by soprano Sarah Cheatham. Soprano and pianist
Julie Bateman will perform “Between Worlds” by Anne Marie Davis
and “Winter’s Tear” by Jeannie Cotter. Local composer and pianist Re-
bekah Todia will present two songs: “She Walks In Beauty,” to a poem
by Lord Byron, and “The Solitary,” to a poem by Madison J. Cawein.
It’s a great program and we’re really proud of it.
Photos by Mariana Mora
You can see more at:
CFComposers.org
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