THE BANNER SAGA Soundtrack, Featuring Dallas Winds, Set for 5/13 Release

GRAMMY-nominated,*BAFTA-winning composer Austin Wintory created an earthy, multi-layered orchestral score for the single player role-playing tactical game THE BANNER SAGA from Stoic Studios, currently available on PC and Mac. The soundtrack score features the Dallas Winds (America's Premier Windband), recorded by GRAMMY-winning engineer Keith O. Johnson and the Reference Recordings team at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX. In addition the score features a trio of famous YouTube soloists: vocalists Malukah and Peter Hollens, and violinist Taylor Davis. The soundtrack is set for worldwide CD release on May 13, 2014.

Austin Wintory is an American composer who has scored over 40 feature films, a dozen video games, and numerous concert works. In 2012 he received A GRAMMY nomination for 'Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media' (the first ever for a video game) for the game soundtrack from "Journey." His film efforts include the scores to the 2009 Sundance hit "Grace", as well as the 2008 Sundance Audience Award winner "Captain Abu Raed", which put Wintory on the short list as a contender for the Academy Awards for "Best Original Score." He was also nominated by the International Film Music Critics Association for "Breakout Composer of the Year."

THE BANNER SAGA is the first-ever video game soundtrack recording from independent audiophile label Reference Recordings, on its FRESH! from RR series.

Multi-faceted, multi-media composer Austin Wintory and Reference Recording's Chief Engineer, audio wizard, inventor and entertainment technologist Keith O. Johnson have combined their talents in the production of the official soundtrack for The Banner Saga video game created by Stoic Studios.

Austin's previous game score, Journey, is noteworthy as the first video game soundtrack nominated for a Grammy (2013), charting in the Billboard Magazine Top 200 and iTunes.

Keith O. 'Prof.' Johnson is a Grammy Award winning engineer, Audio Engineering Society Silver Medalist and sonic legend, having designed and patented many innovative products in the professional and consumer audio fields.

Composer Austin Wintory When composer Austin Wintory conceived music for The Banner Saga, he wasn't thinking of synthetic strings in a plug-in studio or a faceless offshore orchestra. To musically portray the Nordic universe of the game, he looked to the robust horns and percussion of The Dallas Wind Symphony, America's premier concert band. He was familiar with their dynamic sound so realistically captured and presented on their releases on Reference Recordings. In a bold move, Austin called Kim Campbell, Executive Director, and asked about working with both with Dallas Wind Symphony and the recording team responsible for their sound. And so began the collaboration of Reference Recordings' world renowned engineer Keith Johnson, award-wining composer Austin Wintory and The Banner Saga's creator, Stoic Studios.

The stage is lined with plywood paneling to direct the sounds into the microphones. Recording this soundtrack required a unique inter-weaving of the purest, audiophile mic placement and recording techniques of Keith Johnson with the multi-track needs of game production.

Audio tracks for games have unusual demands; their playback sounds and volume are inter-dependent with the players choices and include additional instruments, soloists and voices. Reference Recordings' is famous for not using multi-track so a new engineering protocol was established to blend KOJ's work and Austin's team.

The engineering styles of both parties where shared in email discussions, back and forth. They created diagrams of the stage set-up for the Dallas Wind Symphony players, placement of KOJ's microphones and recording equipment (most of it hand built, modified or invented by him) and determined how those would be Directed to 'feed' a Pro Tools based recording system. Later, vocal and instrumental soloists parts were added to complete the project.