Jonny Greenwood is better known as the guitarist in Radiohead, but where most members of successful bands form crappy side projects to fulfil their song-writing ego, Greenwood has been busy writing and composing classical pieces. A trained classical musician, having been playing the viola and piano from a young age, Greenwood has always strayed from the image of a typical lead guitarist, creating his own unique style of playing while also writing brilliant string and piano parts. And it is mainly his influence that has allowed Radiohead to continually be at the forefront of popular music. Following this project, and with Radiohead on a break from recording and touring, Greenwood was hired by the BBC as its composer in residence in May 2004, and has since written pieces that have been performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta including Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which won the Radio 3 Listener’s Award and also drew the attention of P T Anderson. A brilliant piece that drew influence from Gyorgy Ligeti, whose pieces were, unknown to him, used in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (Ligeti didn’t know his music was so heavily used in the movie until he saw 2001 at the cinema) and Krystof Pendrecki’s Threndoy for the victims of Hiroshima. Both pieces use dissonant chords (‘unstable’ sounds that do not resolve to a ‘home’ key) to powerful effect, with Ligeti turning the orchestra into an almost electronic instrument, and Pendrecki uses the string section to represent the screams of the victims of Hiroshima. With There Will Be Blood, Greenwood has created a unique and remarkable score, showing that he has the potential to be one of the great contemporary composers of the 21st century, and, at least, one of the most original.
