As you know, Jonny and the London Sinfonietta performed on both days of this weekend’s Ether Festival. The setlist, if you’d like to call it that, was identical both nights- beginning with Jonny’s 12-minute composition ‘Piano for Children’, described as “an half-tuned childlike piano, cradled by strings, which begins to decay in both time signature and tuning” by one reviewer. It was followed by ‘Smear’, Jonny’s Odnes Martenot composition (which has been played a few times already).
Then, Thom came out and joined Jonny and the Sinfonietta on ‘Arpeggi’, a new song whose lyrics will seem a bit familiar to frequent Radiohead.com visitors. Finally, vocalist Lubna Salame and the Nazareth Orchestra (an amazing band of traditional Arabic musicians- highly recommended) came onstage for a performance of ‘Where Bluebirds Fly’- which had not yet been played live.
Sounds like an amazing evening…
Thankfully, given the, er, “wired” tendencies of concertgoers this day and age, one can already find MP3 audience recordings of said songs. Check your favorite message board or file sharing service- they’re there.
I’ll spare you the offical reviews, which range from mildly interested to negative to glowing, as they always do. Better to decide for yourselves, no?
The official setlist was as follows:
György Ligeti Ramifications
Olivier Messiaen La Fete des belles eaux
Henri Dutilleux Ainsi la Nuit ‘Miroir d’Escape’
Jonny Greenwood Piano for Children
Henri Dutilleux Ainsi la Nuit ‘Litanies’
Mohammed Abdel-Wahab Enta Omri
Interval with screenings of Radiohead TV
Henri Dutilleux Ainsi la Nuit ‘Nocturne’
Jonny Greenwood smear
Farid El-Atrash Tuta
Krystof Penderecki Capriccio
Henri Dutilleux Ainsi la Nuit ‘Litanies 2’
Radiohead Arpeggi and Where Bluebirds Fly
(Thanks to everyone that wrote in…and we mean everyone.)
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