Playing with Food
The Vegetable Orchestra is a musical group in which vegetables are used as instruments.
© Patrick Bernard—AFP/Getty Images
A musician from the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra performs on stage during a 2010 concert.
If anyone ever tells you not to play with your food, tell them about the Vegetable Orchestra. For more than 25 years, audiences around the world have been watching this musical group play instruments made of vegetables.
The Vegetable Orchestra was formed in 1999 in Vienna, Austria, by a group of musicians who were looking for a new sound after signing up to play at a festival.
“It all started as a joke,” musician Matthias Meinharter told the BBC. “We thought, ‘What is the most difficult thing to play music on?’ We were making soup together at the time, and one idea led to another.”
Pretty soon the musicians were carving flutes out of carrots and violins out of leeks. The veggie instruments are used in different ways. Some make percussive (drum-like) sounds, and others make a tone, like a musical note. Working together, and in the hands of the musicians, they produce wonderful music.
Traditional musical instruments are made to last a long time. Musicians treasure them. That’s not possible with vegetables. The members of the Vegetable Orchestra must carve new instruments before every concert because each one rots or softens after about six hours. Unused vegetables don’t go to waste. The musicians add them to soup that is served at that night’s concert.
© Dominique Faget—AFP/Getty Images
The musicians of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra must carve new instruments regularly because vegetables don’t last long.
Meanwhile, the musicians need to get used to new instruments every day.
“Vegetables are unpredictable,” said Susanna Gartmayer, who plays several veggie instruments, including the carrot marimba. “No two pieces of produce are the same. It’s a challenge.”
That hasn’t slowed them down, though. In March, in fact, the Vegetable Orchestra earned a Guinness World Record for the most performances by a vegetable orchestra. At the time, the group had played 344 concerts.
