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Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood Goes Classical

added 17 May 2004 at 16.20

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood has landed himself a job at the BBC. His new role as 'composer in residence' requires him to compose and produce modern classical pieces for the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Although he will be composing most of his pieces directly for broadcast on Radio 3, the guitarist is also likely to write for the Proms and may even get involved in writing general theme tunes for the station.

Roger Wright, station controller for Radio 3, spoke to The Sunday Times about Jonny's appointment to composer in residence. 

"The great joy about this deal is that Jonny is not a classical composer. He has a great talent and we want to give him the opportunity to simply be creative."

He also said, "We want him to try things out with brass and strings, to experiment. Anything goes and we are all enormously excited."

Greenwood himself is also looking forward to getting involved with the BBC orchestra, saying, "The key thing for me is beginning a close relationship with an orchestra. Orchestras are very magical things."

Greenwood is not a classically trained musician but he recently composed a score for the film 'Bodysong', which earnt him a prestigious Ivor Novello Award nomination earlier this year. His predecessor, Anne Dudley also came from a non-classical background - she was a founder member of electro art pop-band The Art Of Noise.

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Nina Scherer

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