The Radiohead-classical connection

It used to be news when there were "surprising" connections between the band Radiohead and the world of classical music. But there are just so many of those connections now.

Pianist Christopher O'Riley made two CDs of his quasi-classical solo piano versions of songs by Radiohead. (Here's my interview with Chris, from when the first CD came out.)

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood is a classically-trained violinist. (Very nice write-up here by Alex Ross, for the New Yorker.) He spent some time as BBC Composer in Residence recently, and wrote an orchestral piece called "Popcorn Superhet Receiver," which was premiered in 2006 by the BBC Concert Orchestra. Pitchfork had a wonderful description of the piece: "like a lot of things Radiohead does, it's both pretty and a little creepy."

Hear it by clicking on the stream link at the bottom of the page here.

The new "surprising" news is that Radiohead singer Thom Yorke is contributing to a classical project.

I look forward to hearing it...and I'm not at all surprised.