The video game soundtrack will be performed live for the first time by Orchestra Victoria at ACMI in February.
It's hard to overestimate the cultural impact of the Hollow Knight series of games, made by three Australian creatives who collectively go by Team Cherry . Its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong was one of the anticipated titles released in 2025 but few expected it toSilksong was originally planned as a downloadable story expansion for the first Hollow Knight game, but over the seven years of its development it grew to become it's own standalone title — one that has sold more than seven million copies since its launch in September.
Fans and critics alike praised Silksong for its detailed worldbuilding and challenging combat, but particular love was lavished on Australian composer Christopher Larkin, who was nominated for Best Score at the 2025 Game Awards for his intricate instrumentation. Now Larkin's score is being given the full orchestra treatment at a series of live performances at ACMI in Melbourne. " is just such a great thing for the Australian independent game sector," ACMI public programmer Arieh Offman says.Discover a new world of music, as composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance poet Meena Shamaly brings you iconic soundtracks and orchestral scores from digital gaming. " really showcases the types of games that are made here and the fact that we can be making this kind of impact at an international level." Larkin said the scale of the excitement around the game even surprised him when it launched and just kept building over time. "I didn't have the idea that it would become that big. We definitely knew that we had an audience to bring the game to, that kept growing as we added more content to the game." "Something that Team Cherry do very well is they know their audience and they respond well so it's just been a case of continually working on the game making it better, bigger and exciting."Stringed instruments were an important motif when it came time for Larkin, who also scored the original game, to tackle Silksong's soundtrack "In pretty much every track where there are strings, they're the kind of thread throughout the whole score, which I like to think represents the concept of silk threading throughout the world of Pharloom," says Larkin. The world of Hollow Knight is one of anthropomorphic insects, who live and fight in ruined lairs built of webs, stone and metal. Linda Garrett, Gemma Phillips, Belinda Kendall-Smith, Emma Perkins recording music for the Hollow Knight: Silksong soundtrack in Adelaide."It started off with string quartet. I reached out to Lachlan Bramble who is from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Silksong had room to experiment — that was one of the benefits of doing it over a long period of time ... that we could try things." Larkin was able to try new techniques and writing styles, including for the piece Widow that he said would push the concept 'that string players can be just as heavy as metal guitars.' As a returning visitor to the world of Hollow Knight, Larkin felt a great deal of trust from his collaborators the second time around. When normally he would take each concept to Team Cherry first for approval, this time he took a risk and went straight to recording a piece, which required precision for the cello and viola players. The studio was able to increase the size of the ensemble when recording the sequel soundtrack to Hollow Knight. Lachlan Bramble and Emma Perkins pictured here perfoming."I sent it to Team Cherry and they loved the concept, but then they said 'Now this fight has a second phase. Can you make it a second variant of it, but make it faster?'" Larkin says. "Then we go back to the session and that's the second half of that track, the musicians pulled it off fantastically,Scoring the Fourth Chorus Taking inspiration from impressionist composers Ravel and Debussy, as well as film composer Danny Elfman, the sonic world of Hollow Knight is often sad and melancholic. For Silksong, fusing together synthesised digital elements and organic sounds was at the front of Larkin's mind. "This time around, I wanted to find the right balance of human element in the more atmospheric parts of the game. a granular synthesiser, but then you might have something like a solo violin singing on top of that," he says. Amelia Holds, Courtney Turner and Siobhan Owen recording vocal parts for the Hollow Knight: Silksong Soundtrack in Adelaide.As the game development continued, Team Cherry would provide snippets or concepts to Larkin to inspire his writing, sometimes acting out moments of the game before they could be shown. "To describe one of the bosses known as Fourth Chorus, William acted out the movements of the boss because they hadn't put it together yet and there was a lot of that sort of stuff, having to start composing to a conversation versus composing to an early version of the game."The soundtracks for both games are designed to be experienced alongside gameplay but bringing them to a live stage performance is a complicated task. While the recordings themselves are designed to sound like live performance Larkin said there are always 'little cheats' like extra layering within each piece. While the game appears to be two dimensional, it's actually a 3D game built in layers, similar to a theatre stage.While the score will be the star of the show at ACMI and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's February shows, Offman says it was imperative to include Silksong gameplay into the performances. "So, while you get to see an entirely new arrangement of some of these iconic tunes from both Hollow Knight and Silksong, you'll get to see the game played live by one of Australia's top Hollow Knight speed runners, Vichisuki," said Offman. The Melbourne-based gamer has spend weeks rehearsing with Orchestra Victoria to ensure perfect synchronicity. " an essential and intrinsic part of the preparations to make this kind of event work and it's really exciting and unique because every performance is a little bit different.""It's going to be a challenge, also in the performance of the game as well, there's virtuosity in that and it's going to be really exciting to watch that unfold." Hollow Knight & Silksong Live with Orchestra Victoria will be performed at ACMI in Melbourne on February 19, 20 and 21, 2026.
Videogames Team Cherry Christopher Larkin Chris Larkin Classicreads
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