Andy Brick

Alt. Name:
Date of Birth: March 8, 1965
Location: New York City, USA
Website: www.andybrick.com

Biography / Trivia

Andy Brick is a composer and conductor well known for his work on various video game scores and concerts. He was passionate about playing the piano and composing music for as long as he remembers. After studying composition at the University of Michigan, he took graduate studies at Mannes College of Music. He subsequently attended a seminar about how to break into film scoring and decided to score student films at his local film school. His first film, The Trial of Fentris Waterloo, was very well received in the indie film scene in New York and put him in good shape for scoring further student films. In those early days, he worked hard scoring three of four extremely low budget films in the course of two months each year.

Through his student film work, Brick had developed a strong reel of synth orchestra music and small live ensemble scores. He later had brief experience in Hollywood by recording with an orchestra at the Fox Newman sound stage. He developed his profile further by scoring the games of the Kingdom series by the legendary designer Ric Dyer and creating music for the PC software KidPix Deluxe and TesselMania. As protégé of Walt Disney's senior composer Danny Troob, he later wrote music for the animated movies Little Mermaid II and The Lady and The Tramp II. He was also commissioned to create music for demonstration trailers and even some award-winning independent compositions.

In 2003, Brick was appointed music director, senior orchestrator, and composer of the fantasy orchestral album Merregnon II. He ensured the recordings with the Prague Symphony went well and developed a great friendship with producer Thomas Boecker. Later that year, Brick received the honour of conducting the Symphonic Game Music Concert that occurred at the Leipzig Games Convention under the same producer. In addition to leading the Czech National Symphony through 90 minutes of Eastern and Western game music, he was delighted to be asked to write the official opening fanfare. He returned to conduct the four diverse and ambitious subsequent concerts in the series with the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague.

Brick has also worked as an orchestrator and conductor with the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague on various game projects. He worked in these roles on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl and Warhammer - Age of Reckoning. As a perfectionist, he spent an incredible amount of time studying and conducting these titles. He is also famous for his additional composition roles on the games SimCity 4, The Sims 2, and Stranglehold. Since 2006, he has worked under Arnie Roth as an associate conductor of the world concert tour PLAY! A Video Game Symphony. While he has mainly worked behind the scenes, he personally took the baton at Baltimoore. He is expected to conduct several more performances during 2008.

Games (8)

Year Title Platform Composer
1995 Kingdom: The Far Reaches PC, 3DO, CDi Brian Besterman, Doug Besterman, Andy Brick, Martin Erskine
1995 TesselMania PC Andy Brick
1996 Kingdom II: Shadoan PC, CDi Brian Besterman, Doug Besterman, Martin Erskine, Andy Brick
1998 Kid Pix Deluxe PC Andy Brick
2002 Arc the Lad Collection PSX Masahiro Ando, Hirotaka Izumi, Andy Brick
2003 SimCity 4: Rush Hour PC Jerry Martin, Walt Szalva, Andy Brick, The Humble Brothers, Edwin Dolinski
2004 The Sims 2 PC Mark Mothersbaugh, Albert Fox, Silas Hite, Andy Brick
2007 Stranglehold PC, PS3, X360 Tilman Sillescu, Pierre Langer, Jamie Christopherson, Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco, Andy Brick

Games - Other Credits (2)

Year Title Platform Composer
2007 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl PC Vladimir Frey, Markus Holler
2008 Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning PC Brad Derrick

Albums - Non-VGM (1)

Year Title Type
2004 Merregnon Soundtrack - Volume 2 CD

Albums - Other Credits (1)

Year Title Type
2009 PLAY! A Video Game Symphony Live! CD

Reviews

» PLAY! A Video Game Symphony Live! (by Chris)

Download Links

» SimCity 4 (Album)

Added by Chris on Dec 20, 2008 09:56 PM Edited by Chris on Dec 21, 2008 12:32 AM