Profile: Martin Leung equally at home with video game music as classics

• Martin Leung, a shy 19-year-old piano virtuoso with perfect pitch.
• VideoGamePianist.com shows videos of him playing video game theme tunes blindfolded, or turned away from the piano.
• His first video has been downloaded by around 40 million people.
• He has played the Hollywood Bowl as part of Video Games Live.
• “To me he is the modern-day Chopin or Lizst — Bach, Beethoven. He’s all of those guys wrapped up into one,” says composer Tommy Tallarico, who wrote the “Advent Rising” score. “He just happens to love video games.”
• He will start a carefully-selected world tour so as not to interfere with his studies.
• He could become a crossover success story: “I think he could make a huge name for himself by playing pieces on the piano that are pop-culturally significant, because all of us thirtysomethings grew up on this stuff,” says Tallarico. “And as great as Beethoven and Mozart are, a lot of times we’re more familiar with TV commercial jingles, movie soundtracks and the music from video games.

Read the full article: Pianist Makes a Name As a Video Game Virtuoso