Jonny Greenwood's “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” to get a US premiere

Jonny Greenwood's “Popcorn Superhet Receiver”, his piece for string orchestra, is to have its first American performances on 16 and 17 January 2008 in New York, in the Wordless Music Series at the Church of St Paul the Apostle. The series pairs classical performers with rock and post-rock bands; its autumn season has Do Make Say Think, Beirut and Múm.

Greenwood wrote the piece as composer in residence with the BBC Concert Orchestra, his first work in the job. It was a BBC Radio 3 commission. The orchestra gave the world premiere under Robert Ziegler at LSO St Luke's in London on 23 April 2005. It played it again at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last November. It won the Listeners' Award at the 2006 British Composer Awards.

It is scored for 18 violins, six violas, six cellos and four double basses. NME gives white noise and the music of Krzysztof Penderecki, György Ligeti and Olivier Messiaen as its starting points. The piece grew out of the idea of background noise and radios, from long car journeys as a child, when Greenwood could hear the cassette playing behind the engine.