UC Davis Video Game Orchestra and Katrina McPherson

The 12/3/2025 edition of Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour

The Video Game Orchestra at UC Davis was started by Ziad Asadi and Sogol Aliabadi in 2017, with the goal of allowing college musicians to explore the wonders of video game music. What started out as a small group of 9 musicians has now grown into a community of more than 100 members! All of their members are current students or alumni of UC Davis, and all of our pieces are arranged by their own members. Each quarter, they select a theme for their concert that explores a genre of video games, allowing them to cover a diverse array of games throughout the year. In past concerts, they have played tracks from games such as Kingdom Hearts, Hades, Undertale, Journey and more. 

Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories about a toff; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about an oik; and contemporary psychothriller standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comedies about a Scot-out-of-water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. She has won multiple Anthonys, Agathas, Leftys and Macavitys for her work and been shortlisted for an Edgar, three Mary Higgins Clark awards and a UK dagger. McPherson is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.

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