Radiohead Guitarist Jonny Greenwood to Debut New Classical Work, 'Water,' for Australian Chamber Orchestra

Interesting timing. A day after news broke of Rufus Wainwright's new opera Hadrian for the Canadian Opera Company, the other outstanding poster-turned-genuinely-interesting-classical-maven, Jonny Greenwood, has announced a new classical work. When artists like this write orchestral music, it underlines just how inadequate and limited the term "classical" actually is.

Greenwood is most famous as guitarist for Radiohead. But his "classical" outings (it's the only word we've got, so we'll stick with it) have been received with admiration from fans and reviewers. The new work has been written for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and will get its debut in 2014. Called Water, Greenwood was inspired by the sounds he heard in Indian classical music--when he traveled there in 2012.

Greenwood is known to love the music of Messiaen and Penderecki. Indeed, he joined the Polish composer on a 2012 joint album for Nonesuch. The Australian Chamber Orchestra, under the aegis of Richard Tognetti, has consistently played new and little known (especially Australian) music.