Live orchestral performance of There Will Be Blood

London Contemporary Orchestra will bring their live orchestral performance of Radiohead guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood's score for award-winning film There Will Be Blood to Brighton Dome.
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be BloodDaniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood

The show features more than 50 orchestral players and uses the Ondes martenot, a rare early electronic instrument that resembles a cross between an organ and a Theremin, which Greenwood has also used on various Radiohead tracks.

Watching the film with the score performed live is a rare treat for music fans and lovers of cinema alike. Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 epic historical drama is regarded as one of the greatest films of the 2000s.

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It was voted at no.1 in Total Film’s top ten films of the decade, no.3 in the BBC’s 100 greatest films of the 21st Century, it won two Oscars (nominated for eight) and won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival that year.

Meanwhile Greenwood’s score is considered a masterwork of dramatic tension.

While writing the script, Anderson heard Greenwood’s orchestral piece Popcorn Superhet Receiver and the alien experimental dissonance of the music set the unsettling tone for the film, which is based on the Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! set in Southern California during the oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th century.

This score was Greenwood’s first of many soundtracks for feature film. It has passages taken from Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and Brahms’ violin concerto (both major works in the classical cannon in their own right).

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The London Contemporary Orchestra put together the “live-theatrical” presentation of the film for the world premiere in 2014 for two sold-out performances at the 2,500 capacity Roundhouse in London.

They have a unique working relationship with Greenwood, also providing orchestral support on multiple tracks on Radiohead’s most recent album A Moon Shaped Pool.

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