Christopher Hülsbeck (born 2 March 1968), known internationally as Chris Huelsbeck, is a German
video game music composer.[1][2] He gained popularity for his work on game soundtracks for The Great Giana Sisters and the Turrican series.
Huelsbeck's music career started at age 17, when he entered a music competition in the German 64'er magazine, taking first prize with his composition "Shades".[3][4] He took a job in music production with the company
Rainbow Arts.[4]
In 1986, Huelsbeck released the SoundMonitor program for
Commodore 64 computer. The program was released as a type-in listing in the German computer magazine 64'er. This program, featuring the idea of notation data rolling from down to up, is assumed[5] to have a significant influence on Karsten Obarski's
Ultimate Soundtracker (1987) which was a starting point for the still continuing tradition of tracker music programs.[6]
Huelsbeck has written soundtracks for more than 70 titles, the latest being Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. Many of his scores for the
Commodore 64 are regarded as classics among enthusiasts today, most notably The Great Giana Sisters. He is best known for the soundtracks to the Turrican series of games.
He also created a music replay routine for the
Amiga called TFMX — "The Final Musicsystem eXtended", which features more musically-oriented features than rival
Soundtracker, such as logarithmic pitch-bends, sound macros and individual tempos for each track.[citation needed]
On 23 August 2008, his music was performed at
Symphonic Shades, a concert devoted exclusively to his work. For the first time ever in Europe, an orchestral concert was dedicated to a game composer and broadcast live on the radio.[8] The WDR Radio Orchestra and a choir performed classics such as The Great Giana Sisters, Turrican, R-Type and others in
Cologne, Germany under the direction of
Arnie Roth.[9] On 19 March 2009, the concert Sinfonia Drammatica at the Konserthuset in
Stockholm,
Sweden was announced, with Arnie Roth conducting the
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The event took place on 4 August 2009 and combined performances of Huelsbeck's Symphonic Shades with excerpts from Drammatica by
Yoko Shimomura.[10]