After the closing announcement earlier this month, we've been receiving stacks of questions that are lingering around. I hope clearing the air on some of these topics will help eliminate any confusion.
The most common reaction has been people wondering why we've chosen to close the project, rather than leave it open as an archive. Frankly, the site has served as an archive for the last three years, as we devoted ourselves entirely to Twilight Symphony and other projects. It's not a decision we've made lightly, but it's time to start letting go and moving on ahead into what the future holds for each of us. We aren't opposed to fans creating mirrors of our music collection, but we would really appreciate fans refraining from creating live HTML replicas of the website. Not only will this help prevent confusion, but it will make it easier for everyone to move on.
Our friends at Zelda Universe have uploaded Twilight Symphony to their servers for people who do not use torrents. They will be creating a download page sometime soon, but these are the links for the Twilight Symphony archive, and the complete ZREO archive. We greatly appreciate everyone who has sent us a donation for our efforts on Twilight Symphony. If you haven't, and would like to, you may do so here.
We will be keeping our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and SoundCloud accounts online, albeit in a limited capacity. We will post occasional updates every few months if we have something we'd like to share that fans might be interested in. Radio Hyrule will continue to be maintained and operated, and could actually use some help if you're interested.
Many fans have expressed interest in following our future projects. You can follow each of us personally:
There is also an email newsletter sign-up form on the bottom of the front page if you would like occasional email updates whenever one of us wants to announce a new project.
We will be uploading Twilight Symphony to our YouTube channel in music video form. These videos were shown at our MAGFest panel earlier this year, and include footage from Twilight Princess that has been rendered in high-definition by our server manager, Austin Wright (@awwright). The visuals are fantastic. We've posted the first track today, along with a timelapse video detailing Houston Hanna's creation of the Twilight Symphony artwork. The rest of the album will be uploaded periodically between now and June 12.
Our mission statement has always been: "At Zelda Reorchestrated, we are committed to lush symphonic performances of the greatest songs from The Legend of Zelda™ as they would have sounded from the warm halls and intimate expression of a live philharmonic. We do not seek profit or fame. We simply love Zelda and wish to share its inspiration on all of us with all of you."
For almost 9 years, Zelda Reorchestrated has been producing Zelda arrangements explicitly out of love for the franchise and the compositions they have to offer. However, the time has come to bring the project to a close.
Twilight Symphony, in our own humble opinion, is ZREO's greatest achievement. It was a long time coming, and while not everything has panned out the way we wanted for the project, we have decided to set Twilight Symphony free into the wilds as a final thank you for all you've made possible for us to accomplish.
If you haven't already discovered, Twilight Symphony has been available via torrent since November 2012. We understand that out of loyalty and respect, many of you have avoided this as a means of obtaining the album. We sincerely appreciate that. It was our heartfelt desire to release the album through our record label, Joypad Records, via iTunes, and other digital outlets. Unfortunately, it appears that will not be happening, so we are not opposed to you finding an alternative means through which to obtain it. Ultimately, we just want you to have it for your enjoyment.
If you enjoy Twilight Symphony and would like to make a donation as a show of support for our efforts, any contribution would be greatly appreciated, though in no way expected or required.
On behalf of the team, I would like to express the deepest gratitude for all of the incredible support the community has provided us over the years. We don't see this as an end, but rather a new beginning as we follow our own paths and focus on our own careers. We will still be creating plenty of music, including arrangements from other games, as well as original compositions, and we invite you to follow us as we pave new roads. There are sure to be some overlapping interests. :)
As for the ZREO website, it will remain online until June 12, 2013 so you have some time to say goodbye. After that time, it will go dark indefinitely. No official attempts will be made for its revival. Our legend will survive on the wind's breath.
Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you further down the road!
Eric Buchholz
Edit: To be clear and to avoid any confusion, closing ZREO is a decision we arrived at as a team. Our hearts our heavy, but this is of our own accord.
Good morning world! This week's update comes from The Wind Waker: Dawn. This track is a great throwback to the Hyrule Field Morning Theme from Ocarina of Time, many will easily recognize it.
Hey fans, sorry for the late update.. This is the first chance I've had a sizeable amount of time in front of a computer to update the site since Mycro_chip finished up this update for you, and we hope you all enjoy it nevertheless! Nayru's Song - Oracle of Ages
Two weeks since our last song... Bet you guys have been waiting for this next one! It's been a really long time since our last NES update, so Mycro_chip decided to create this week's update: "Battle" from Adventure of Link. Take a listen below and grab a download. =]
On behalf of the ZREO Team, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of the new visitors whom we got to meet with at the VGXPO last weekend! Thanks to everyone who donated, and we will be sending out your CDs sometime during the next 2 weeks. We reeeeally appreciate the tremendous amount of support from our online visitors... we received incredible response last weekend - a lot more of one than we had really expected.
EDIT: Project Maranello UPDATE!
Tommy Tallarico of Video Games Live fame, APPROVES of Project Maranello!
Head on over the staff page to check out our latest staff members on the site: Jeron and ccbtimewiz. Jeron is going to be working with us as our Creative Director / Producer, as well as our Special Projects Coordinator. ccbtimewiz will be working a lot behind the scenes to work on improving the site's functionality and structure. Please give them a good welcome!
As always, thanks for checking out this week's update... Enjoy!
~ebuch
PS: Here's the artwork for our 6' x 3' banner that we had at the expo. Beware: It's a very large image file! Banner Artwork
Hey guys! VGXPO is going crazy today... Countless numbers of Zelda fans have stopped by and are discovering ZREO for the first time! The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and the show is really only going to get busier and more insane! As you may have seen in some of the pictures, we have a green carpet at our booth, which we've lovingly nicknamed "Link's Tunic."
Here's what we wanna do: there's an artist next door who will paint the following image on one of the quadrants of our carpet -- IN GOLD -- which will put our humble booth OVER THE TOP! It's going to cost us $75 bucks. We're gonna do this, but we'll be posting pics and a BIG PERSONAL THANK YOU from ZREO to whoever can donate TODAY to help us make this happen. It's gonna be OFF THE HOOK, and people are gonna love it here at the show!
There will be video! There will be Zelda fans! The music will be blaring, and the TRIFORCE will be EMBLAZONED on the floor of our booth. Thanks for your support and help!! We look forward to showing everyone how today rolls out.
VGXpo is finally around the corner... crazy. We're still awaiting confirmation of our booth number, but we should be somewhere around Booth #1309, which is right by the entrance off to the left (and close to the Nintendo booth!). Unfortunately we cannot guarantee everybody who attends the expo a CD, those of you who do get one will be fortunate enough to be among the 1,000 fans to obtain the promo disc-only track "Spirit Tracks Trailer v2". This is a track that will not be released on the site, and will be purely for the recipients of the promo CDs. If you want this song you're going to have to come and get it!
Today's update, however, we are releasing on the site... Mini Game Redux from the Ocarina of Time soundtrack. Our original idea for this song was to play it at the VGXpo while we did some sort of game for prizes, but later scrapped the idea in favor of having "listening stations" where people can come to our booth and listen to our music using computers and headphones. Please enjoy!
We'd like to congratulate Vruliic as his development team will be attending as an exhibitor to show off upcoming titles. Also, he was asked to compose the expo's opening ceremony music and arrange music for the world premier trailer of the very first packaged DSI game in North America (to be announced at the show), published by Storm City Games. ALSO he will be speaking in a music panel with a few other industry musicians. So keep your ears open!
