It’s fair to say that we have never spent more time in front of our screens than in the past two years. Through lockdown after lockdown, so much of our work and social lives have been reduced to peering into a backlit rectangle, our connections to other people conducted via our internet connections.

But our screens also currently play host to some of the most exciting and dynamic art being produced right now, from film and TV to video games. This weekend the sixth annual High Score conference celebrates composition and sound art for gaming – appropriately entirely online – with a series of workshops, presentations and Q&A sessions exploring every aspect of working in these ever-growing industries. Part of Melbourne International Games Week, with over 1000 registrants from 46 countries, it’s clear there is enormous interesting in creating music and sound for games.

As video games have become more sophisticated, and the technology more advanced, so too has the music. Video game scores are now every bit as detailed and complex as film scores, and just as more “traditional” classical composers have written film scores since Max Steiner, Shostakovich and Korngold defined the sound of early Hollywood, classical...