Six of the group Peter Brooke Turner, Kitty Lux, George Hinchliffe and Hester Goodman, in addition to Mssrs. “The minute that eight people walk onstage with ukes, you’re winning already,” said Will Grove-White, an orchestra member. Ukuleles are mildly humorous and kind of cute, particularly when deployed by adults dressed in black tie. Suich an opportunity to release his long ponytail and fling his hair around, à la Cobain. They do a cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which affords Mr. There is also the unexpected delight of their repertory, a genre-bending array stretching from “The Ride of the Valkyries” to the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K,” which they perform as a friendly folk song, infusing even lines like “I am an Antichrist” with a cozy bonhomie. Part of it is the members’ deadpan sense of humor, in which they laugh at themselves as much as at the music. Part of the appeal is that the group eight of them, all singing and playing the ukulele extracts more than seems humanly possible from so small and so modest an instrument, with its four little strings. In The Financial Times Laura Battle praised the orchestra members’ “consummate skill” and said that the “sophisticated sound they make both percussive and melodic is at once hilarious and heartfelt.” The Evening Standard said, “The country would plainly be a happier place if more of us played the ukulele.” “They have grown into a much-loved institution,” The Observer of London wrote. Previously the private passion of a large but sub rosa group of devotees, the orchestra hit mainstream popularity last month when it performed to a sold-out crowd at the BBC Proms music festival at the Royal Albert Hall here. “Relief is one of the major emotions of our audience,” declared Dave Suich, an orchestra member.īut the happy surprise of encountering something completely different from the Tiny Tim-style hamming or banjo-plucking embarrassment of your imagination doesn’t wholly explain the deep love the orchestra inspires, not just in Britain, but also in Europe and as far away as New Zealand and Japan. LONDON If the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain exists partly to subvert expectations, then the first expectation it subverts is that it is going to be very, very bad.
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