Jonny Greenwood plays Reich's Radio Rewrite at the Royal Festival Hall

Jonny Greenwood played with the London Sinfonietta at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday afternoon, 27 September, in a Steve Reich programme for the composer's 90th birthday, which falls on 3 October. Under the conductor Chloe Rooke, with students from the Royal Academy of Music in the ensemble, he played bass in Pulse and Radio Rewrite, and opened the second half alone with Electric Counterpoint, playing the solo part live against his own recording of the backing.

Radio Rewrite is the piece Reich wrote in 2012 on “Everything In Its Right Place” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, first played by the Sinfonietta the year after. Greenwood told Eddi Fiegel of The i Paper before the concert that he found it insanely complimentary⁴, and that he still could not believe Reich had done it.

Clive Paget, reviewing the concert for The Guardian, praises his spotless technique in Electric Counterpoint and the personality he gave it, which he finds rare in Reich. Richard Maguire of The Reviews Hub could not work out which notes were live and which recorded, and searched the stage for a loop pedal that was not there. Agnes Kory, at Seen and Heard International, had no idea the bass player in Pulse was anyone famous, and found he played like a regular in the ensemble and his Electric Counterpoint exciting. When the Sinfonietta takes the programme to Budapest on 12 October, the Hungarian jazz guitarist Bálint Gyémánt plays in Greenwood's place.

Greenwood has been playing Electric Counterpoint since 2011, and these days he plays the guitar every day, after years of distrusting fluent playing. In the early days of Radiohead I always felt like a clumsy guitar player and was always lazy but now, just through repetition, I've got hooked.⁴ He told the i about one performance of it in Poland, with Reich in the room. According to the sound guy, he punched the air when the bass guitar came in. Unless he was shaking his fist at me.⁴

The programme