Wooden Elephant are a contemporary classical string quintet who reimagine iconic electronic-based albums and present them in their entirety as totally acoustic, longform contemporary classical concert works. 

A big inspiration for the ensemble and the arrangements came from Wooden Elephant violist and composer Ian Anderson’s work with the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO). In 2014–15, the LCO collaborated extensively with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood on his contemporary string chamber music, culminating in a tour across Europe with him, and playing on Radiohead’s latest album, »A Moon Shaped Pool«. Along the way Jonny continually experimented with sound production techniques, which included introducing unusual objects to the process such as plectrums and pacay shakers. His constant questions of »what happens if you pluck it with this?« or »what happens if you hit it with that?« massively influenced these Wooden Elephant album interpretations.

Working alongside experimental genre-bending PODIUM Festival Esslingen(Germany), Wooden Elephant completed a series of albums, among them Björk’s »Homogenic« (2017), Radiohead’s »Kid A« (2018), and Beyoncé’s »Lemonade« (2019, complete with the poetry of Warsan Shire from the visual album). Their newest project is an acoustic concert version of Aphex Twin’s massive double album »Drukqs«, in collaboration with prepared piano specialist Mathias Halvorsen.

Wooden Elephant have performed their albums at venues and festivals such as Berlin Konzerthaus, Philharmonie de Paris’ Days Off Festival, London Jazz Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and Beethovenfest Bonn.