the vegetable orchestra

You may likely have heard about the Vienna Philharmonic but perhaps this unique orchestra, also based in Vienna, has escaped your attention until now? Phonetic Planet was delighted to sit down and chat recently with Matthias Meinharter, one of the founder members of The Vegetable Orchestra. It’s been difficult to look at a carrot or a pumpkin in the same way ever since!

Susan: I’d love to start today’s conversation, Matthias, by asking you about your own background, and how, as a founding member of The Vegetable Orchestra, you discovered that you and your fellow members could create this special genre of music.

Matthias: Well, twenty five years ago, we were a group of students (but not music students) who were very interested in the arts, including music. In fact, at the time I was studying ethnology. A friend of ours was organizing a festival and invited us to present something; we agreed, assuming that it would be something related to music because this was the thing that everyone in our friend group could do, to some extent, but certainly not on a professional level. We were actually cooking a vegetable soup, all of us together, when we had a funny idea. What if our music was boring to the audience, and consequently they threw things like tomatoes at us? Should we take things to throw back at them? As we laughed about that while we were cutting the vegetables, suddenly the idea came. Why not build instruments out of vegetables? Some days later, twelve of us met in a practice space. From the beginning it was clear that while it was very funny, it was indeed possible to make music from vegetables. We made some flutes and there was a lot of experimenting. About three or four months later, after weekly rehearsals, we presented our first concert.

Susan: So, what were some of the original experiments?

Matthias: Well, we tried to do some cauliflower ocarinas. But that did not work at all, because of the texture and the density of the cauliflower. We tried cauliflower drums but that was also unsuccessful. On the other hand, one experiment became my personal favorite. It is the leek violin! I actually call this a readymade instrument. You can buy it fresh from the market. And you can play it immediately. You take one or two leeks in one hand, and you hold it like a violin. You put it between your chin and shoulder. Hold it with your hand. Then take another leek, as a bow. It makes a very specific sound.

My personal background in design possibly drives my interest in inventing instruments that  automatically play themselves. This fits very much into the Vegetable Orchestra. There are only three founding members left, but we are continuously looking for artists to join the ensemble. Nowadays, almost all of us are working in artistic fields even though you didn't start that way.

In the beginning we were only intending to perform one concert. I remember  thinking that our performance looked so spontaneous, but also realizing that it had to be so carefully prepared in order to feel that way. So much methodical work had to go into getting everything organized and maybe trying it out and seeing what failed and what didn't in order to make it successful. Even though the instruments are maybe more professional now, and we know how to build them. I would say that a carrot flute is not really a real vegetable instrument because it sounds like every flute in the world.

Susan: You are bound by certain factors when you design your program, and even your instruments, though. Right? It has just occurred to me that when you travel, you don’t bring any instruments with you.

Matthias: Correct. We have to buy fresh from the market. Firstly, we are really bound to season, because what you can buy in season makes a big impact on the instruments. For example, in spring we cannot easily find pumpkins. Pumpkins are our bass instrument, so we have to deal with solving that problem.

Another challenge is region. Perhaps here in Vienna we produce our best sound, because we have invented it with material acquired here. But if we go, for example, to Britain, then we have problems finding our instruments in the market, because the cuisine is different. We can't find celeriacs, for example. We have to use turnips instead.

Susan: Do you take a couple of days to shop and prepare?

Matthias: It's one day. We usually arrive at our concert destination on the day before the performance. We send a shopping list to the organizers of the concert, with very precise measurements such as carrots 25 centimeters in length, of a particular thickness etc. On the morning of our performance we inspect the vegetables, and then we find out, no, this won't work, this will work. Then we go again to the market to buy some alternatives, if necessary.

Many of the organizers want to do us a favor and buy biological food. But this is, unfortunately, for us, not ideal because organic carrots are often too small and therefore we might be unable to use them. We are used to improvising a lot on stage. Some of our spontaneity lies in the fact that while we are performing, some of our instruments are actually breaking or not staying in tune because they are actually spoiling (rotting) while we are playing.

Each concert will consequently sound very unique because the programme depends on where we play, when we play, and also how good the instruments are built. And this gives us, let's say, our concerts are very different from each other, depending on these facts. In retrospect, going back through the past twenty five years, I think that our concept of making music would not be possible if we were professional musicians. Because professional musicians are often specialized in only one instrument. At every rehearsal, every concert, we each have a new instrument. And after the concert it's like, gone. It's in soup. Yeah, it's in the soup.

Susan: Is it true that you really do make soup at the end?

Matthias: Yes! At the first concert we ever played, we really cut the instruments into a soup and then served the soup to the audience. But after our show, the people had to wait for almost one hour to get the soup. We then realized that we needed to take a different approach in subsequent performances. So we are like, uh, 'cause we are like, when we build the instruments. Nowadays the soup is prepared during the concert, incorporating some of the excess vegetables from our instruments.

Susan: Do you guys have a regular practice schedule?

Matthias: We do have weekly meetings but the meeting is not always for rehearsing. It also involves organization, because we do have a basic democratic structure, with no chief or leader. Everybody is involved in different aspects of the organizational work. We rarely organize concerts for ourselves; people usually invite us to perform.

Susan: Have you ever been invited to perform in an unusual space?

Matthias: We have performed in concert venues like the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Luxembourg or the House of Music in Moscow. We can also play at an outdoor market or food festival. Last year we played at an electronic music festival in Denmark, which was really fun. We can play everywhere! If we play in Vienna, our audience is very mixed, from very young people to very old people. We are also not fixed to one genre of music. It's more a show than a musical performance and it makes the whole concept of music as something that's very accessible. It's not exclusive; you're definitely meeting the community at such a basic level. We all eat food and we can all recognize most of those vegetables. Even a little kid can see our instruments and think “I have that in my house!”

Susan: Do children ever ask any of you for lessons?

Matthias: Yes, of course. We do some workshops, both for kids and for grown ups. On the day before a concert we usually have a workshop for the audience so that people can see how we do what we do. At the end of our concert, when we serve the soup, we ask the audience to come on stage, or close to the stage. And during that time we show our instruments,  and people can talk to us while we are eating soup together. We love to meet with the audience and hear them talk about their experience. It's like the conclusion of the whole thing isn't it? It’s quite a sustainable performance.

I think up to 400 people is for us the ideal audience size. Obviously, we can't cook soup for thousands of people!

That would take a lot of soup…..

We are so very grateful to Matthias for taking the time to chat with us, and look forward to attending a concert by The Vegetable Orchestra in 2024. In the meantime, you can learn more about them at the following link:

https://www.vegetableorchestra.org

You can find them on Instagram @thevegetableorchestra

Check out this piece called “Transplants”, performed at a TEDxVienna event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKrx1gWI_Vk