New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Guitarist/composer
Jonny Greenwood is the guest on NPR's All Songs Considered. He talks with NPR's Bob Boilen and Tom Huizenga about his own music-a bit of Radiohead, his There Will Be Blood soundtrack, and two new pieces just given their premiere on the latest NPR Tiny Desk Concert-and shares some works that have inspired him over the years, including New Order's "Everything's Gone Green," Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie, Krzysztof Penderecki's Polymorphia, and Steve Reich's
Music for 18 Musicians.
"I love Steve Reich. He's someone whose scores I spend a lot of time looking at and listening to. He's a big influence for sure," Greenwood says. "If you listen to something like his
Music for 18 Musicians, what's remarkable about that, it sounds exactly like this digital manipulation you can do on recordings today where you stretch the sound, and it's called granular synthesis, so you can make sound longer in time without changing its pitch. It's a really lovely effect. And if you listen to
Music for 18, it sounds exactly the same, except it was written thirty years earlier, and it's just done with acoustic instruments. It's just the most wonderful sound, wonderful textures he makes."
Greenwood will lead a BBC Proms concert at Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday,
September 10. He has curated a program of pieces by Biber and Penderecki, Reich's Pulse, and his own new pieces, and will perform with the BBC
National Orchestra of Wales. The concert will be broadcast on BBC Four on Friday,
September 13.
Jonny Greenwood's Academy Award-nominated score to Paul
Thomas Anderson's film Phantom Thread was released on Nonesuch Records last year. It was their fourth collaboration, following soundtracks for There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Inherent Vice. Nonesuch also released his score for Norwegian Wood; his album with Penderecki; his performance of Reich's Electric Counterpoint; and Junun, his collaboration with composer/musician Shye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express.
