The National and Radiohead rockers on a contemporary classical release!

Bryce Dessner and Jonny Greenwood celebrate classical influences

180-gram pressing includes album download voucher

"Bryce Dessner is without doubt one of the most exciting contemporary composers working anywhere in the world today. We welcome his daring, his passion and his unique creative vision to the Yellow Label, and look forward to working with him." — Mark Wilkinson, President Deutsche Grammophon

It's a musical marriage! Deutsche Grammophon proudly presents the release of orchestral works composed by Bryce Dessner, known to many from the acclaimed rock band The National, as well as a complete suite from the soundtrack of "There Will Be Blood," composed by Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead.

Never before have classical and rock music converged in so organic, compelling and sensual a way as they do in the three short orchestral works by New York composer and guitarist Dessner on his new release St. Carolyn by the Sea, performed with the Copenhagen Philharmonic and conducted by André de Ridder. The explanation is simple enough: Dessner, born in 1976, has always had a foot in both worlds, classical and rock inextricably mingled within his musical bones.

Dessner originally studied classical music (earning a master's degree from Yale University), and absorbed the influences of composers such as Morton Feldman and Steve Reich when he came to New York. These days, as well as playing with The National, he regularly collaborates with contemporary artists such as Bang on a Can and the Kronos Quartet.

"For any classical musician who's been born since 1960, the music of the era around them is popular music," says Dessner. "You find that in many variations: former rock musicians who end up going the classical route, or very academic composers who are perhaps re-setting a text by Bob Dylan. ... Our interests are so diverse that you can't really say ‘oh, that's a guy from a rock band who writes classical music'. You should say the opposite: Jonny Greenwood was a classical violist who became a guitarist with Radiohead. But the music he's interested in is still Penderecki and Ligeti."

Dessner presents three pieces of modern classical music here, drawing on elements from Baroque and folk music, late Romanticism and modernism, minimalist music and the blues, among others, as well as referencing the work of such legendary figures as John Fahey, La Monte Young, Béla Bartók, Glenn Branca, Benjamin Britten, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass and Steve Reich.

The same is true of Jonny Greenwood, the composer of a suite of six miniatures for the soundtrack of "There Will Be Blood" which rounds out the album. The pairing of Dessner and Greenwood on the disc didn't come about by chance, but because André de Ridder likes programming their music together, for live concerts too. Their collaboration is based on mutual preoccupation with quintessentially American themes such as the vast expanses of the country's landscape and a sense of nostalgic longing; themes which, previously, were largely the domain of other musical genres.

With this album Bryce Dessner and Jonny Greenwood open up a new frontier for symphonic music.

Track Listing
LP 1:
Bryce Dessner
St. Carolyn By The Sea
St. Carolyn By The Sea
Lachrimae

LP 2:
Raphael (Bryce Dessner)

Jonny Greenwood
Suite from “There Will Be Blood”
1.Open Spaces
2.Future Markets
3.HW/ Hope Of New Fields
4.Henry Plainview
5.Proven Lands
6.Oil