How the Civilization VII music team created a world music masterpiece
We hear from Grammy-winner Christopher Tin and composer-arrangers Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo about assembling an exquisitely recorded, globe-trotting soundtrack.
By Thomas Quillfeldt
The Sid Meier’s Civilization series is known as much for its compulsive "just one more turn" loop — building an empire and guiding it to a cultural, military, scientific or economic victory — as its historically-inspired playable civilizations and architectural wonders. Across the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Ages, players can control various factions and wield the unique abilities of their visionary leaders.
Arriving nine years after its predecessor, 2025’s Civilization VII launched across multiple platforms, including PC, Mac & Linux, two generations of PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and the Nintendo Switch.
Given developer Firaxis Games’ pedigree, it’s no surprise that the Civilization VII soundtrack is a hugely ambitious, impeccably recorded album of world & choral-orchestral music.
Christopher Tin returns to the series with two tracks including Civilization VII main theme “Live Gloriously”. Tin composed Civilization IV main theme "Baba Yetu", which made history as the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award. He also contributed Civilization VI’s stirring main theme “Sogno di Volare”.
Civilization VII’s in-game music cues were composed, arranged and produced by Geoff Knorr (Civilization: Beyond Earth, Civilization V & VI) and Roland Rizzo (Civilization II, III, IV, V, VI & XCOM® series).
We spoke to the three composers about the enormous task of scoring a game that spans human history and the entire globe.
Christoph Tin (L); Geoff Knorr (C); Roland Rizzo (R).
Listen to Sid Meier’s Civilization VII soundtrack album on music services including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and more: lnk.to/civilization-VII
Check availability of the Limited Edition 4LP vinyl box set and essential selections double LP: lacedrecords.com/collections/sid-meiers-civilization
Living gloriously (in Homeric fashion)
FILMHarmonic Orchestra recorded at Dvorak Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague.
Released in 2005 as the theme song for Civilization IV, Christopher Tin’s “Baba Yetu” casts a long shadow over the Civilization series, video game music in general, and also the world of contemporary classical music. It wasn’t until February 2011 that the song won a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals — the first video game-related piece to win a Grammy, although the nominated version was actually a re-recording for Tin's 2009 album Calling All Dawns.
For Civilization VII’s main theme “Live Gloriously”, the composition approach was a little different. Tin says: “In contrast to my previous Civilization themes “Baba Yetu” and “Sogno di Volare” — which were conceptually only loosely connected to the game itself — this time there was greater emphasis on creating a direct connection between my theme and the game’s narrative. For “Live Gloriously”, I worked closely under the direction of Cinematic Director Chris Staehler and Narrative Director Cat Manning to come up with a piece that matched the grittier realism of Civilization VII. It also reflected the revolutionary new three-era structure and global approach to the idea of leadership and civilization.”
The tone of the game is set by the opening cinematic, featuring Tin’s cue “Carved in Stone”:
Tin explains his favourite detail: “When we reach the marketplace scene of the opening cinematic [at 1:36], I have the main theme played on a zurna, which is a Central Asian woodwind instrument with a high, raucous sound. It’s special to me personally because it reminds me of my experiences visiting the marketplaces of Istanbul and Tangier.”
The cinematic conveys a world of struggle, using a sword as its main imagery as well as depicting a series of sombre scenes from history: the aftermath of a battle; a shipwreck; Mongol raiders attacking a village; and the fog of war. It also has a moral, according to Tin: that the events of the past reverberate throughout history, and we must learn from our past failures if we are to chart our way towards a better future. “It made me think of a quote from Hector in The Iliad (which makes an appearance in Civilization VI when you first discover the great writer Homer):
"Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter."
“This quote served as our starting point,” Tin explains. “[Cinematic Director] Chris Staehler explained that he was drawn to the idea of a monomyth — an archetypical story which is told by various cultures across centuries, but which all share commonalities. [Narrative Director] Cat Manning explained that Civilization VII had a much broader emphasis on non-Western cultures that had previously been overlooked. Thus the idea of a multilingual approach to lyrics was born. Instead of focusing solely on the quote from The Iliad, we would instead find quotes from other additional ancient epics, from all corners of the world, all of which contained the same message: do something magnificent before you die, and your life will shape the course of all of history that follows.”
“Live Gloriously” was performed live at The Game Awards 2024.
The result of this approach is the main theme “Live Gloriously”, which pulls as its source material quotes from The Iliad, Beowulf, Popul Vuh and Ramayana. Tin admits: “Writing a piece that weaves together four distinct sources was a challenge for me compositionally, and an even greater one for Crouch End Festival Chorus, whose members had to learn how to pronounce Ancient Greek, Old English, K’iche’, and Sanskrit!
“In a way, the end result is a perfect reflection of the state of our current times: a world of challenge, strife and uncertainty over the ultimate future of humanity. But, like Hector in The Iliad, we will not go down without a fight. Perhaps, bonded by our shared human history, we can regain our footing, and chart our way toward that better future — if we’re just willing to listen to the lessons of the past.”
Civilized behaviour
With Christopher Tin taking care of the broad thematic strokes, it was up to two other series veterans Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo to tackle the in-game score.
“The high-level goal for the music was to match and enhance the cultural and temporal objectives of the game,” adds Rizzo.
“Our in-game musical score is designed to complement and underscore what is happening in the game,” adds Knorr. “The uniqueness of every civilization is underscored by their musical theme and the instruments and musicians performing the theme. There is a great diversity of cultures in the game spanning the age of human civilization, and the musical score mirrors this.”
From the ancient Kingdom of Aksum (in East Africa/South Arabia) to C20th Siam, players have 31 civilizations to choose from at the game’s launch, split across the three ages (Antiquity, Exploration and Modern.) Something that sets Civilization VII apart from previous titles in the series is the fact that each faction is locked to its respective era.
“This significant change meant our themes for each playable civilization needed to be specific not only to its culture and corresponding musical tradition,” says Knorr, “but also its time period as much as possible. One result of this is an increased use of full ensembles specific to each tradition.”
The Eras tour
Geoff Knorr continues: “The approach for each age [or era] is in many ways the same — find the appropriate musical tradition, style, and instrumentation, and compose/arrange a theme that strives to best represent that civilization.”
Rizzo reminds us that Civilization VI was more “traditional” in the sense that players selected a single civilization to use throughout the game, across Antiquity, Exploration and Modern eras. “A musical theme was selected for that civilization and, at the beginning of the game, it was presented in its most basic form — usually three instruments or fewer. As the game progressed, more instruments were added to the ensembles and the styles changed with the progression through time.”
With Civilization VII, since the musical themes don’t evolve over time, there’s no need to start with a small group of instruments for the Antiquity Era. Rizzo continues: “In the new game, we still had to portray the sound of ancient music but with a much larger group of performers.”
“The Exploration Age would be considered the Medieval/Renaissance era for Western music,” says Rizzo, “so for Western civilizations we used authentic melodies from that era and an ensemble of Renaissance players [Ensemble I Fedeli].”
“For non-Western civilizations,” adds Rizzo, “we tried to use melodies and ensembles that correctly portrayed the music of that era.
The Modern era is largely orchestral, with pieces conducted by Andy Brick and performed by the FILMHarmonic Orchestra and recorded at the Dvorak Hall, Rudolfinum in Prague in the Czech Republic.
Rizzo stresses: “For non-Western civilizations, again, authentic cultural themes and ethnic players were used to make sure the flavour of the culture was preserved. With orchestral music, it is easy to make everything sound like generic soundtrack music, which is not Civilization.”
Rizzo’s favourite track from the album is “The French Empire (Modern Age)”: “The first theme conjures outdoor Parisian cafes, while the second theme evokes the atmosphere of a court dance. It was a lot of fun to juxtapose those disparate elements.”
Worldly music
The Civilization VII soundtrack comprises a staggering breadth of recordings made across the world. Orchestral, choral, and Greek instrumental recordings in Prague and London; Chinese instruments recorded in Los Angeles; Khmer (Cambodian) instruments recorded in Massachusetts; Choctaw percussion recorded in Mississippi; C16-17th European instruments recorded in Germany; Chola (Indian) instruments recorded in California; sessions in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Japanese instruments recorded in New York.
The Southern Pine Drum Group performing “The Mississippians (Antiquity Age)”.
Rizzo comments: “The main consideration in creating the music was to expose the player, as authentically as possible, to the music of the world.”
Knorr continues: “This original soundtrack incorporates more musicians, more ensembles, recorded in more locations from around the world than any previous Civilization game.
“The world is a wonderfully diverse and culturally rich place — and beautiful, unique, and sophisticated musical styles have developed across the globe. Hopefully, in addition to underscoring each civilization, the soundtrack can serve as an introduction to the many musical traditions around the world.”
“The Mongol Empire (Exploration Age)” was performed by the Mongolian State Morin Khuur Ensemble and recorded at White Arch Studios, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia:
“The journey of scoring with so many musicians across such diverse styles and instruments is always enlightening,” says Knorr. “There are two primary challenges to incorporating such a wide range of musical traditions. The first is research: each theme for each civilization comes from a unique time period with a unique musical tradition. We must work as ethnomusicologists, researching each tradition and finding the best possibilities for what the theme can be based on to truly represent that civilization.
“With so many civilizations coming from hundreds and thousands of years ago, we are also musical historians, trying to determine the instruments and music of those long past time periods. Sometimes this means following a lineage of musical traditions and what has been passed down generation to generation.
“The second challenge is putting together the many pieces needed to bring each cue to life: finding performers, scheduling sessions, learning to write and work with so many different instruments and styles, producing the sessions, and editing and mixing the final recordings. Unlike many scores that have a single core group of musicians across most of the tracks, each civilization theme on this soundtrack required a different musical tradition, and often an entirely different group of musicians performing.”
Anirudh Bharadwaj, Vani Ramamurthi, Ananya Ashok, Hrishikesh Chary, & Rohan Krishnamurthy perform “The Chola Dynasty (Exploration Age)”.
Rizzo also points out that finding authentic melodies and not Westernizing the performances were also big challenges.
Knorr is proud of the diversity of the score, but also strove to give the album some coherence: “When we travel to new places, we expect to experience new things. The farther we go, often the more different from our home things become. Now, imagine the differences if we could time travel to the great civilizations of the past! The diversity and juxtaposition of the soundtrack is mirroring the immense creativity of humankind to create such a diverse range of musical styles and instruments through the ages.
“While the styles are diverse, there is a cohesive sound across the entire soundtrack. I served as the final edit and mixing engineer on all tracks, I was able to maintain similar mix settings across all of the themes, helping to bring together the overall sound in the midst of such a diverse range of ensembles.”
Vocal chords
The Wong Pleng Khmer ensemble, performing “The Khmer Empire (Antiquity Age)”.
Something that marks out “Live Gloriously” and the Antiquity and Exploration eras of the score are a remarkable range of vocal performances, from a full-throated Western choir to carnatic vocals in the Indian tradition and beyond.
For example, “Ancient Hawai'i (Exploration Age)” is an arrangement of a traditional composition, with Luana Haraguchi performing lead vocals and ipu heke, a percussion instrument. Masue Suzuki provides additional vocals, Sandro Friedrich plays conch, and Geoff Knorr himself plays the ʻohe hano ihu — a Hawaiian nose flute.
The track opens with the sound of ocean waves and Knorr’s nose flute. Haraguchi comes in with her hypnotic speak-singing around 1 minute 41 seconds, in a call and response with Suzuki. After some spoken back and forth, the first line, sung in Hawaiian, is “Ua nani Hā’ena i ka ‘ehu kai” translated as “Beautiful is Hā’ena in the sea spray.”
Knorr explains: “Singing and vocal traditions are an integral part of a vast majority of musical traditions, so it isn’t surprising we ended up incorporating vocals and vocal ensembles across many of these musical themes. The unique singing styles in such a variety of languages hopefully adds to the in-game immersion and will introduce listeners to styles and languages they haven’t come across before.”
War & Peace
Knorr says: “The score also incorporates era-specific ‘ambient’ themes for both peace and war. These pieces serve as general themes to the game world, and utilize instruments from around the world that you may have heard during that particular era.”
“A notable highlight amidst these tracks is the inclusion of the pipe organ in the Rudolfinum, Dvorak Hall in Prague in two of the modern age ambient pieces. I recorded in this hall many years ago for the Civilization: Beyond Earth soundtrack, and wanted to return and be able to include the awe-inspiring organ in that hall on a soundtrack.”
Listeners can enjoy the organ in “Hope Rising (Modern Age Ambience 1 Peace)” and “Stand Firm (Modern Age Ambience 1 War)”.
Knorr continues: “The world class renaissance group Ensemble I Fedeli is featured for the Exploration Age ambient themes. We recorded them in Martinskirche Müllheim, a German church dating back to the 12th Century, itself likely built over an even older Roman building.”
Culture Victory!
Knorr wants players to play the game and enjoy the music with “a sense of journey, discovery, accomplishment, and awe.”Understandably, after years of working on such a huge variety of music, he struggles to pick a favourite track: “Each time I start thinking a particular track might be my favorite, I remember a little nuance or phrase, or the certain way a performer played or sang something on another track, and I think ‘is that one my favorite instead?’
“Every track has something like this for me. I think of the performers I was able to collaborate with and their immense talent and musicality. Each cue has something special to bring to the soundtrack as a whole, and I hope listeners enjoy finding their own favorite parts in each of the tracks.”
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Christopher Tin – www.christophertin.com
Geoff Knorr – www.geoffknorr.com
Roland Rizzo – www.rolandrizzo.com
Listen to the soundtrack album on music services including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and more: lnk.to/civilization-VII
Check availability of the Limited Edition 4LP vinyl box set and essential selections double LP: lacedrecords.com/collections/sid-meiers-civilization
