Intro & Loop
for marimba with electronic delay

Intro & Loop was commissioned as part of Dr. Marco Schirripa’s PIXEL MASTERWORKS project.

Watch the full concert on YouTube, read the program notes below, or get in touch if you’d like to work together.

Star Victoria Power (they/she), also known by their artist name, "Slide20XX" is a composer who writes "colorful music for colorful games." Originally from Augusta, Georgia, Power began their musical journey as a violist in fourth grade - though they initially signed up for violin, their teacher plucked the strings on the first day and declared, "Oh, yours is a viola." Power happily replied, "Okay" and hasn't looked back since. They continued their studies from 6th - 12th grade at the John S. Davidson School of Fine Arts, where they continued to play viola and enrolled in piano classes.

Power's early fascination with reading, and eventually reproducing, internet comics made of graphics from the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games sparked their interest in using the computer as a creative tool. The pattern continued with video game 'MIDI' files - after early experiments with creating video game inspired MIDIs, they decided to pursue video game music composition as career and began teaching themself electronic music production.

Their collegiate studies began with Viola Performance and Classical Music Composition at the University of Georgia. In 2011, they were selected to attend the Red Bull Music Academy in Madrid, Spain, where they were invited to collaborate with international musicians and presented their work through a crowd-controlled music-based video game. Their experience at RBMA revealed gaps in their technological knowledge and inspired them to transfer to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where they studied Electronic Music Production and Sound Design alongside Video Game Scoring.

Since moving to Seattle after graduating from Berklee in 2016, Power has composed music for numerous video game projects, including the multi-billion dollar virtual reality game Rec Room; Calico, a game about magical girls running a cat café; and Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain, for which they created an electro-swing, jazz, and hip-hop inspired soundtrack. They also wrote the music for a series of anti-racist public service announcements created by the Cartoon Network series, Steven Universe, in 2020.

Intro & Loop, written for marimba with electronic delay, is named after the naming convention Power uses in their video game music work. Typically, a game music file is divided into two portions: the "Intro," which plays only once, and the "Loop," which plays until an appropriate moment in the game, such as when a player completes a level. If you're familiar with the 7 note introduction to the theme of Super Mario Bros., you've encountered the form before.

Intro & Loop is presented in similar fashion: the *Intro* section is played only once while the *Loop* section is divided into several segments which the performer is instructed to perform any number of times and at any volume according to the performer's discretion. This is in homage to the way a video game's score responds to the input of the person playing the game.

Intro & Loop is Star Victoria Power's first professionally commissioned classical work. More of their work can be found at Slide20XX.com or under the username @Slide20XX on various platforms, including Instagram and BlueSky.