Last year, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner premiered his first proper foray into symphonic composition with “41 Strings,” a seasonally-themed piece celebrating the 41st anniversary of Earth Day. The 4-part instrumental — which features a “Wall of Sound”-esque ensemble of stacked guitars, bass, and drums, among more commonly used symphony instruments (violins, cellos, et al.) — was later performed at the famed Sydney Opera House, backed by the Australian Youth Orchestra. Now we can watch that performance without flying down under, as the whole show was professionally filmed and uploaded last week (h/t Drowned in Sound). The entire 28-minute gig is impressive, but its opening, “Fall,” and distortion-spiked “Spring” section brought the biggest thrills around here. Without further ado, glimpse what one of the best guitarists in the game whipped up (armed with no prior ability to read music and negligible expertise in the classical genre) by watching those selected parts below:
Fall
Spring