Classical conductors on Radiohead & Greenwood

Posted on April 30th, 2007.

Not only Ronen Givony is going to perform Jonny Greenwood’s classical work. Justin Brown, the music director and principal conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra has planned a performance next season as well.Justin Brown told Birminham’s City Paper: “Greenwood is a classically trained musician, and there are some serious classical influences with Radiohead’s music that are not obvious”. Jonny Greenwood held a position with the BBC in 2004 as its composer-in-residence, taking the opportunity to compose several pieces that were later performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra in London.Over lunch, Brown discussed a specific bass line he had heard on Radiohead’s OK Computer album. While sitting at the piano on another occasion, he realized the complicated structure of that song had been lifted from an 1853 orchestral arrangement. “It was note-for-note and in the same key, which was just incredible,” he said. “There are many examples where today’s contemporary music can trace its roots back to classical arrangements, and that is where we can obviously make a connection with younger audiences. Our performance of Jonny Greenwood’s work will probably be the best example in this new series.”"Radiohead (specifically ‘OK Computer’) was also discussed in brief by the Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen in the most recent New Yorker (April 30th).Alex Ross writes that Salonen, the conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic, was “deeply impressed by Radiohead’s 1997 album ‘OK Computer,’ and once went out for drinks with members of the band.” He later states that Salonen “remains open to the idea that a pop album could floor him as ‘OK Computer’ did, and wants to unleash similar foces in his own music, a mixture of the brainy and the visceral.”[thanks Madison & Ashish]

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