Jeremy Soule on Kickstarting his new symphony and the Hall of Fame

4 April 2013, 18:09 | Updated: 18 September 2020, 10:15

Not only has Jeremy Soule's music from the Elder Scrolls video games knocked Beethoven out of the top 5 of the Classic FM Hall of Fame, he's also taken to social media to compose his first symphony. Classic FM's Sam Pittis spoke to the man himself.

It's been quite a month for American composer Jeremy Soule. 

His Kickstarter project, launched to raise funds for his first symphony (titled 'The Northerner: Soule Symphony No. 1') has sailed past its initial $10,000 target, and is well on the way to reaching ten times that amount.

Perhaps more notably, Soule's music for the video game series The Elder Scrolls was voted in at no. 5 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame, the world's biggest poll of classical music tastes. In a controversial chart that has also seen game music by Nobuo Uematsu land at No. 3, Soule edged Beethoven out of the top 5.

Reactions have been mixed, but in this fascinating interview with Classic FM's Sam Pittis, Soule has a message for any purists that may not have taken kindly to his arrival at the top end of the chart: "I'm coming from a friendly place, a place of respect and reverence for the composers on this list."