If you spend enough time on the internet, sooner or later, you’ll probably come across the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. As the name suggests, they’re a pretty memorable group, so check out their website if you’ve never seen (or heard) them before. Earlier this month, the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra set the Guinness World Record for the most concerts performed by a vegetable orchestra: 344, and counting.
The orchestra was formed in 1998, originally as a joke among a group of four musician friends who were making soup together and considered the possibility of making music with vegetables. They tested their idea at a Vienna arts festival, and the rest is history.
For over 25 years, the Vegetable Orchestra, now an 11-member ensemble, has played concerts all over the world (they have upcoming dates in Japan and Italy), with instruments exclusively made from produce. These veggies range from carrots, leeks, and radishes to pumpkins and parsnips, all amplified with special microphones. Their performances span a wide range of genres, though all could be categorized as Gemüsik, a German term combining “vegetable” and “music.”
The vegetable instruments are created before each show, with the musicians carving and drilling freshly purchased produce (and sometimes dried vegetable parts) into a wide range of familiar and unfamiliar instruments. Each musician creates up to two dozen instruments for every show.
Alongside traditional instruments like clarinets, recorders, flutes, drums, mandolins, and violins, the orchestra members also develop new creations, like the “cucumberphone,” a wind instrument that incorporates portions of a cucumber, pepper, and carrot.
Drawing on the orchestra’s beginnings, any leftovers from instrument production are turned into a large pot of soup, which is then served to the audience after the show.
Veggie music:
- The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra has released four albums, most recently the Green Album in 2018.
- Similar groups have followed in the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra’s footsteps, including the Long Island Vegetable Orchestra and the London Vegetable Orchestra.
- Because of their unique organic materials, the instruments are only playable for about six hours. After they are no longer usable, they are turned into organic waste.
