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Jonny Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver Given West Coast Premiere at Wordless Music Series Season Finale

Aug. 01, 2008

The acclaimed orchestral work by Radiohead guitarist and Faber Music composer Jonny Greenwood sees its west coast premiere this month in San Francisco's Herbst Theater as the Wordless Music Series takes its finale on the road. Benjamin Shwartz conducts the Magik*Magik Orchestra through the program that also features Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memory ofBenjamin Britten. Written for string orchestra and dubbed by Greenwood as "a study in white noise", Popcorn Superhet Receiver had a strong opening in the US as Allan Kozinn of the New York Times wrote of its US Premiere in January:
Where pure white noise is an undifferentiated hiss, Mr. Greenwood's score, even at its most densely atonal, has a consistently alluring shimmer and embraces everything from lush vibrato, glissandos and sudden dynamic shifts to slowly rising chromatic themes. Toward the end his clusters give way to a prismatic full-orchestra pizzicato section.

Alex Ross of The New Yorker added:

The piece possesses a solid architectural shape, with slow-moving, darkly meditative passages framing a kinetic, rock-tinged midsection. The writing for strings is idiomatic and inventive; at one point, Greenwood devises a buzzing barrage of "Bartók pizzicato"-sharply plucked sounds from violins cradled like ukuleles.
The concert takes place at San Francisco's Herbst Theater on August 21. For more information go to www.wordlessmusic.org.

More information on the music of Jonny Greenwood can be found at www.fabermusic.com.

For more on the music of Arvo Pärt, visit www.universaledition.com.

Jonny Greenwood
Popcorn Superhet Receiver (2005)
for string orchestra
18vn.6va.6vc.4db
18'

Arvo Pärt
Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten (1977/1980)
for string orchestra and bell
6'

photo credit: Jason Evans

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