The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, founded by George Hinchliffe and Kitty Lux, has enjoyed touring in the United States many times. For those who have not yet encountered it, they are an original musical ensemble featuring only ukuleles of various sizes and registers, accompanied by just the natural voices of the performers.
The founding brief for the group was to have fun and “not to lose money.” Throughout its thirty-year career, the group has succeeded in both not losing money AND incidentally making millions of dollars. It has been seen worldwide by audiences including members of the British Royal Family and other crowned heads of Europe, at the Houses of Parliament in London, and by many millions of television and online viewers.
When The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain began in 1985, the public opinion was that an orchestra consisting entirely of ukuleles in different sizes was a strange concept. This was something that attracted the founders. The Orchestra members at that time had experience of many kinds of music and yet had become tired of the conventions of the music business world as well as the conventions of performance and genre stereotyping which were prevalent at that time. The idea was to make something fresh and entertaining, both modern and old-fashioned, in a different style which deviated from the current performance fashion. People liked the result.
Today the Orchestra finds that wherever they go, people are now playing ukuleles, often in groups. Many of these enthusiasts tell the Orchestra that they were inspired to play the instrument after seeing and hearing this, the original Ukulele Orchestra.
While it is not normally in the nature of these artists from Britain to “blow their own trumpets,” or in this case to “pluck their own ukuleles,” it is undeniably a fact that The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has become not only a national institution, but also a worldwide phenomenon.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has been featured on CNN and CBS This Morning. The Orchestra has been invited by the British Broadcasting Corporation to play live on air for BBC Radio 3 as well as for BBC Radio 1 and live on other BBC channels many times. They have taken part in The Electric Proms (in a collaboration with The Kaiser Chiefs), and the BBC Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London (The Proms), where they were the “fastest selling late night prom in history,” selling many thousands of tickets for the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London very quickly.
At this concert the Ukulele Orchestra performed Jerusalem and other classics of the Last Night of the Proms, the celebrated 120-year-old concert series which launched in 1895. Around 2,000 ukulele players in the audience joined the Orchestra in playing passages from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. A DVD of this 2010 BBC Prom concert at The Royal Albert Hall is available to order from the website, www.ukuleleorchestra.com.
Original compositions and songs by the Orchestra have been used on television on film, and in radio plays, as well as in performance by other musicians. They have collaborated with the British Film Institute in providing music for silent films and musically with Madness, Robbie Williams, Ant & Dec, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Stefan Raab, Rainer Hersch and a full symphony orchestra performing at the Royal Festival Hall in London. George Harrison was a well-known fan who established contact and played with the orchestra.
In addition to performing at theatres and concert halls, the orchestra has also packed the crowds in at rock festivals such as Glastonbury, The Big Chill, WOMAD, The Electric Picnic, and before 170,000 people in Hyde Park, as well as playing in seven cathedrals in England and Wales. The group has been commissioned to write commemorative concerts, e.g. The Cecil Sharp 100 Year Memorial Concert in 2012 and The 100 Year World War One Memorial Concert in 2014 for Birmingham Town Hall.
A typical ukulele orchestra concert will feature songs sung by each member of the orchestra so that the audience can get to know each person. The arrangements of the music are specially made, often by the Director and Founder, George Hinchliffe, or by other members of the group. The focus is to bring out the spirit of the music, to be faithful to the musical notes, while changing the style or genre of the music by the mere fact of playing it on ukuleles. Audiences have reported that the music of the orchestra is moving, funny, thought provoking, surprising, or inducing the audience by sheer infectious spirit to “tap their toes” along with the beat.
Tickets for the concert start at $25. To learn more, visit jccc.edu/MidwestTrustCenter. Purchase tickets here.
