Arcane composer Andrew Kierszenbaum on live performances, hidden guinea pigs sounds, and Arcane's legacy

The music of Arcane remains one of the most celebrated aspects of Riot Games' award-winning animated series. Even two years after the show's conclusion, fans continue to play its soundtrack, which helped redefine expectations for both animated television and video game adaptations.

Despite that enduring popularity, opportunities to experience the soundtrack or one of its songs live have been surprisingly rare. On July 9th, however, audiences at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh will have the chance to hear selections from the series performed and led by Andrew Kierszenbaum, one of Arcane's composers.

In an interview with Sheep Esports, Kierszenbaum discusses the creative process behind Arcane's music, from composing alongside unfinished animation to incorporating unexpected sounds into the soundtrack. He also talked about the growing influence of video game music on modern audiences and the challenges of bringing Arcane's score to a live stage.

Kierszenbaum: “Hi, my name's Andrew Kierszenbaum, I'm a composer and pianist, and I'll be performing and presenting the music of Arcane with the Pittsburgh Symphony on July 9th.

Kierszenbaum: So Arcane was such an interesting experience because I was one of the composers on the team of three composers, and it was really, to me, music forward. I've worked on other things where it's kind of at the end, or I have other composer friends in film tell me it's kind of at the end; the movie's done, and they send it over. For Arcane, it was really the co-creator of the show.

The creator of the show is a musician himself and was one of the founding composers at Riot Games. So music was so thought of in this show that it really led the direction. So to me, Arcane is very interwoven with music. They're very tightly wound.

Kierszenbaum: On Arcane, it was a parallel process where we would work off
of unfinished animation - which was interesting and at times, challenging;
when the animation changes, so does the music. It was cool to then see the
final animation after we’d written the music.

Kierszenbaum: So that’s an interesting one because when I started on Arcane, I started with more traditional sounds: strings and piano for example. But I’ve always loved sampling. I have a recording device on me or my phone and I’ll just record sounds. There were times when I would just go through my voice memos and see a recording of a jacket wrinkling in the subway or I’d record my guinea pigs getting bathed; it was just a fun way to experiment. Once I wrote the main part of the music, it was cool to then sprinkle in some unusual sounds. Usually they wound up as percussion, so maybe the pigs would be a loud kind of growly sound at the end and o nce I distorted it, it would act as a suspenseful percussion. Obviously, you cant make it too blatant – I have to kind of mask it a little bit, but it’s just a fun little thing to me. Bringing the real world into music I think always makes it more relatable, maybe even just unconsciously. I think music’s all about having fun and that stuff to me is fun.

Kierszenbaum: I think so. I think Arcane definitely has its sound which I think works with the world. It’s not all over the place, it has its own mood, which I think is amazing It really creates a world of its own. But you’re right that [Arcane] didn’t limit itself in terms of genre. If the directors wanted a crazy rock song by PVRIS in episode eight of season one, t hen they got that moment. One scene called for a super emotional moment at the end of season one, and we got Sting who delivered on that very emotion. And I think that’s just great storytelling. I think you should follow the picture and storytelling, and shouldn’t be limited by ”oh no, we can only make rock songs! We can only make metal songs.” I think letting the scene speak for itself and following that is super important in a show like this.

Kierszenbaum: I think a lot. Video game music is right up there with classical
music and film music now. I think this is now just the new medium where we find the new classical music. But really, I mean, we’re using strings, we’re using horns in Arcane... so I think to me it’s the next kind of evolution of classical music.
And I’m hoping that this concert I’m performing in Pittsburgh serves as this kind of bridge to bring people from the video game world who haven’;t heard much classical music in this concert setting that’s typically associated with classical music — hopefully that can serve as a bridge to get people interested in classical. They can hear this music live in the renowned Heinz Hall hall and that to me is amazing.

Kierszenbaum: I think it is a fandom thing. As you probably know, League of Legends and Riot Games have this reputation of having very passionate fans, which I think is beautiful. And so something like Arcane with those types of fans, to me, a concert like the one I'm putting on next month is what I consider delving deeper into the world of Arcane and giving access to people when maybe there aren’t a lot of Arcane events going on, here’s a new way to engage with it - myself included, because I’m a super fan as well. It is a great opportunity to reconnect with this show, this fandom, this video game culture that we all love. And I think that it's going to be a super exciting, engaging time for all fans of video games, but especially for Arcane and Riot Games fans.

Kierszenbaum: It's a great question. I know Riot has tons of going on, with their very successful games. And I think that for me, when I started playing Leaue of Legends, for example, I experienced Riot as this very video-game-forward company and they listen to their fans; they’re always on Reddit implementing changes into their games that fans want. And to me, that’s awesome and I’ve never seen a video company react andlisten to fans like they do. If they are opting to do other things instead of a concert or something, I think that it’s in service of the fans and the fans of their games. And so to me, it’s not so much that they’re ignoring or leaving these opportunities on the table. It more that they are focused on what they got them started, which is video games and the players and to me that amazing and they’re staying true to their values. I feel that my role as one of the composers of Arcane , as a pianist, and as a fan of Riot and their games is to help engage fans further by bringing to life this wonderful music from the show in a live concert hall setting.

Kierszenbaum: It's definitely a very super fun experience. I haven't done anything quite like this before. I am doing it all: I'm arranging the music of Arcane for piano and orchestra to present, and perform, with the Pittsburgh Symphony: I'm planning the show around the music including what's going to be on screen. So it's really fun to get to be at the helm of this entire production and use my experience working on the show, my experience as a player of these games, as a fan of Arcane. And I'm using that basis to create a show that I think fans are going to love. I've performed in this kind of setting before – with Sting and Ray Chen for the Game Awards a few years ago. I also performed for Emmy voters with Sting and I on the piano, performing the song he featured on in Arcane. To me, being a composer and a fan, I think that will yield something really special and I'm hoping to bring to life this show that I love so much.

Kierszenbaum: I think so. I think that it's never been more accessible to make music, make music for video games, for shows, for indie video games, big video games. I'm meeting people from all over that started producing in their bedroom. I think the accessibility of it is very exciting to me. I keep seeing films that are scored by composers I'm not familiar with, and I love their music. So I think it's amazing. And to call it a golden era, I think sure. Before, there were just more barriers behind getting your music heard with people, but now it's never been easier. Everyone can share what they create and I think that's going to make for some beautiful pieces by some awesome new composers.

Kierszenbaum: To my knowledge, no. I obviously can only speak for my own compositions, my own art. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know where they stand. I never used it. Also I think part of it was when this "AI revolution" happened was towards the end of when we were making Arcane. So I don't think anything was developed with it even then, but I don't know, Cecilia, because my experience with AI and especially AI music tools is so far that when I use a tool to create something, to me as a musician, composer, pianist, the tool created it. So if I use something and it makes a loop or something for me that I can use in a piece, I sit back and I go, "Well, that wasn't me."

I think that these tools are amazing for non-musicians or maybe musicians that want to create things quickly because it enables these artists to get their ideas out quicker. But I think for me personally, I'd rather just do it myself.

Kierszenbaum: I think it's interesting because you're right, they are tools, but for something like my track, from the very end of the Season 2, the piano was written as a big player in that song. It was almost like a voice to me singing the melody. So for that specific track, I wanted to record the piano live. So we went to a studio here in LA and I played the live piano on the track. And to me, to your point, that created this kind of inimitable feeling and I think gave a human touch to the music that I think adds to that scene's feeling of humanity and sadness.

Kierszenbaum: Do you mean just in general or in video game music or?

Kierszenbaum: Something I've been thinking about a lot lately — both in pop and in the scoring world — is how musically literate audiences have become. TikTok and social media have essentially crowdsourced the process of identifying what's great in a piece of music. When you upload something, you very quickly learn which 15 seconds resonates most, just by watching which clip people use. To me, that's a real signal, people have a genuine ear for what's good, what's catchy, what feels right. That connects to the second point about making music hard to ignore. Obviously, you want a score to serve the picture — to fit the scene and create an immersive experience. But the best scores go beyond that. They blend seamlessly under the scene, and yet something catches your ear. You finish the film or the game and you want to find that piece again. The Oppenheimer score is a perfect example to me. That violin melody makes complete sense in context — it belongs with the tension, the pacing — but when the film ends, you want to hear it again. I wanted to sit down and play it on the piano. I love that. Music that both serves the moment and stays with you after it's over.

Kierszenbaum: I often think about how connected film music becomes to the visual. For example, when you hear the Jaws theme, you don't hear two notes — you see a shark and water. That's powerful, and it clearly resonated with people, but it also locks the music into one association. You can never fully unhear what it means. What classical music does so well is that there isn't the same anchor. With no visual, the listener creates their own image — it's almost like reading a book. You paint the picture for yourself. That's essentially what we're trying to do with The Music of Arcane. This concert takes music that exists in the show — tied to specific moments, specific characters — and removes it from that context. The goal is for it to stand completely on its own, whether you've seen Arcane or not. If you have seen it, that emotional memory is going to make the experience even richer. But if you haven't, this is a starting point into modern orchestral music with no visual baggage, just the music speaking for itself.

Kierszenbaum: Arcane's musical legacy is, first of all, an amazing one. I think that there was so much care put into this soundtrack, from the pop songs to the score and the orchestral music. We, as the team of composers, would sit around sometimes analysing a single second of music or a single sound effect or a single chord. And I think all of that adds to the final experience of the music and just exemplifies how much we all love this show. In terms of the continuing legacy, I'm hoping to be a part of that with The Music of Arcane in Pittsburgh and perhaps beyond, in the future. I want to carry this beautiful music that I was lucky enough to be a part of, and bring it both fans of Arcane and to people who haven't seen this amazing show. I'm hoping to do that next month in the concert hall setting, with myself at the piano alongside the amazing Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. I'm hoping I can contribute to the legacy of Arcane and help it live on and continue resonating with people all over the world.”