In Thursday’s (6/26) Telegraph (U.K.), Adam Sweeting writes, “Even when bands like Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes pioneered their own brand of ‘symphonic rock’ in the 1970s, it would never have occurred to them that they could make albums for Deutsche Grammophon … But times have changed, and this month DG released Music for Heart and Breath, the debut classical album by Richard Reed Parry of the Canadian band Arcade Fire. … Parry follows in the footsteps of Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood and The National’s guitarist Bryce Dessner, whose classically inspired pieces were paired on a Deutsche Grammophon disc earlier this year. Greenwood’s vivid and full-blooded suite from the film There Will Be Blood radiates confidence and authority. Meanwhile Dessner has found a convincing way to integrate electric guitar into his orchestral compositions … these releases aren’t an illustration of the way classical and rock music are merging, so much as evidence of the way that musicians are increasingly able to work in a variety of styles and genres that would have been unthinkable a couple of generations ago.” Read Symphony magazine’s article about new works for electric guitar and orchestra here.
CAPTION: Bryce Dessner of The National prepares a new orchestral composition.
Posted June 27, 2014
