Some important shows.

This past weekend, a group of artists played two shows in Wroclaw, Poland as a part of the European Culture Congress in honor of legendary modern composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The two featured artists were Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and electronic music pioneer Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin. The show that Greenwood collaborated on was on the 9th and the Aphex show was on the 10th. Pitchfork linked up to some videos from both nights, and I will post them here.

This is Aphex's interpretation of Penderecki's seminal piece "Threnody for The Victims of Hiroshima."

And here is a recording of Aphex's reworking of Penderecki's "Polymorphia," entitled "Polymorphia Reloaded."

This particular excerpt seems to be a sort of remix of Avril 14th off of 2001's Drukqs, and it's about as gorgeous as the original, though in a different way.

The fans over at the Aphex Twin board on the We Are The Music Makers forums seem to have compiled the entire show in its various parts for easy (uneasy?) listening. If you liked that Avril 14th mix, the entire thing is there.

Frankly, the entire concert series seems like an amazing idea to me: two legendary modern musical innovators paying homage to a godfather of modern classical music. Putting these artists on the same bill just seems wholly appropriate, and it is wonderful to see both Jonny Greenwood and Richard D. James growing musically into high class professionals. Wonderful stuff.

---

Another important concert happened over the weekend, specifically on Sunday the 11th, which is a very big day for us Americans. The Wordless Music Orchestra performed a series of pieces at the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. These pieces were thematically focused on loss and remembrance, in honor of the victims of and hardships incurred by the events of 9/11/2001. Among these pieces was "dlp 1.1" by another great composer, William Basinski, off of his album The Disintegration Loops which is very intimately connected with 9/11. You can stream the entire show or individual parts of it over here at NPR.