Radiohead Guitarist Jonny Greenwood Going Classical

2013-01-15

Story by Cat Badra

Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is writing music for the Australian Chamber Orchestra

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has been busy with a secret side project of sorts: working as a classical composer for the Australian Chamber Orchestra. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, following Radiohead’s Australian tour this past November, Greenwood stayed in Sydney to put his talents towards a composition commissioned by the orchestra.

“I’ve been spending an awful lot of time in dressing rooms the last six months working on this and trying to imagine [it],” Greenwood said. “That’s why I turned up with three quarters of it on paper already, because I’d rather make a lot of mistakes and edit away rather than work with a skeleton and add to it.”

This isn’t Greenwood’s first time working in the symphonic realm. He served as a composer-in-residence with the prestigious BBC Concert Orchestra in 2004 and 2005. He was also previously affiliated with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, as the group played his orchestral work “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” back in 2010.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s artistic director Richard Tognetti is thrilled to have Greenwood on board. “I think the amazing thing about Jonny is he might be a world first [because of] this incredible acumen that he has for being able to write for an orchestra coming from the background of being in a band,” he said.