PARIS - A TRAVELLING show featuring a symphony orchestra playing videogame theme music gave fans in France a first taste of what the organisers describe as 'a new art form'.

With game heros and heroines such as Mario, Zelda or the epic scenery of World of Warcraft cavorting across a giant screen, a crowd of 3,000 crammed a Paris concert-hall on Thursday night for a one-off first-ever public concert staged in the city by Video Games Live.

Its US creators, Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, three years ago launched the idea of throwing three decades of videogame music on stage.

'Videogames are their own unique art form, including the music,' Mr Wall told AFP.

Just as much of 20th century film music was inspired by turn of the 19th/20th century classical music, most of the themes in today's videogames were inspired by film music dating back to the 1970s, in particular the music from Star Wars, Mr Wall said.

'But we decided we didn't want just a concert, we wanted to do a show, we wanted to synchronise music, lights and pictures.'

Using a 41-person symphony orchestra and 25 singers and actors, the concert raced from iconic first-generation Pong through to Mario to online record-breaker World of Warcraft.

'World of Warcraft is absolutely my favourite,' said Mr Wall, 'because the music is so endemic to what the game's about'.

Video Games Live has some 20 concerts planned for 2009, including dates in Sinagpore, Seattle, Beijing and Moscow. -- AFP