Music
Press
"with cabbages leaves aping the sounds of knob-twiddling, mashed aticholes, creating digital-esque static, dried and hollowed out squash standing in for an ambient wash, crunchy celery stalks, crackling in the background, tumbling onions mimicking a rumble of drums and lettuce somehow evoking the sound of a DJ scratching records, the First Vienna Orchestra's show belonged solidly to the school of Mille Plateaux's 'Clicks and Cuts'". - The Daily Star
"it's quite liberating (...) it also leaves behind a residue of curiosity about other everyday objects." - The Guardian
"here is a strong novelty or comedy aspect to the whole project, but the music stretches beyond that. It is surprisingly well written and arranged, daring, challenging, and often surprising. The cover version of Kraftwerk's "Radioaktivität" is hilarious, but the microsound mock-up "Automate" can fool more than a few Kim Cascone aficionados." - All Music
“Best Vegetable Music” - Chicago Tribune
“The music is unique, fascinating, and bizzarrely charming (as are the players)” - Financial Times
"The beauty of this record is that after a while you can stop wondering about exactly what they're doing and what they're doing it with, and lose yourself in the strange little sonic landscapes this lot conjure up." - BBC
"...different than anything else ever heard in classic, jazz or pop" - Süddeutsche Zeitung
"The sensitive microphones onstage pick up up even the softest hint of vegetable noise, and somehow the result suggests that the musicians are more than just people playing with their food" - The New York Times
...The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra blows carved-out carrots, taps turnips, claps with eggplant cymbals, twangs on rhubarb fibers, and rustles parsley and greens, all in the creation of an experimental sound that eventually winds up -- literally -- in the audience's stomach. (...) ." - Washington Post
Discography
"Onionoise", 2010
"Automate", 2003
"Gemise", 1999
Photos
Bio
The Vegetable Orchestra performs with instruments made from fresh vegetables, which must be built anew for each concert and each rehearsal.
The use of various vegetable instruments which are constantly being refined creates a musically and aesthetically unique universe of sound, which cannot be achieved with traditional instruments.
The Vegetable Orchestra was founded in Vienna in the year 1998 and has played at very different venues (concert halls,
greenhouses, mountain huts, clubs, ships, and festivals for classical, electronic, improvised and world music).
In artistic, aesthetic and infrastructural decisions of importance all twelve members of the ensemble have their equal vote. The collective is a mix of people with different artistic backgrounds - musicians, visual artists, architects, designers, media artists, writers and sound-poets all come together here.
The continued exploration and refinement of performable vegetable music is the central objective, the focus of the orchestra's innovative quest. Each individual (and their particular creative approach) is of vital importance in
sustaining the fundamental artistic objective of the Vegetable Orchestra – the artistic autonomy of this unique ensemble.
There are no musical boundaries for the Vegetable Orchestra. The most diverse music styles fuse here - contemporary music, beat-oriented House tracks, experimental Electronic, Free Jazz, Noise, Dub, Clicks'n'Cuts - the musical scope of the project expands never-endingly, and recently-developed
vegetable instruments and their inherent sounds often determine the stylistic direction.
A Vegetable Orchestra concert appeals to all the senses. Vegetable-visuals and live video projections provide fascinating images and after a short time a wonderful smell of vegetables is in the air. As an encore, at the end of the concert and video performance, the audience is offered fresh vegetable soup.
CONCERTS (Selection)
July 2010 pohoda festival (SK)
march 2010 printemps des arts festival, monaco
february 2010 centre pompidou, paris (F)
june 2009 tour in germany (radialsystem, berlin,....)
december 2008 opening of the 'european year of innovation' in bruxelles
september 2008 tour in germany (nationaltheater mannheim, ..)
september 2008 10 years celebration at radiokulturhaus wien
july 2008 tour in italy, germany, france and lativa
june 2008 belluard festival fribourg (ch)
may 2008 spor festival aarhus (composition by bent sorensen) (dk)
december 2007 hong kong city hall, yuen long theatre (hk) / transmusicales/rennes (f) november 2007 huddersfield contemporary music festival (uk)
october 2007 steirischer herbst/ musikprotokoll graz (a)
march 2007 philhamonie luxemburg
november 2006 solidarity concert for the spanish vegetable workers union SOC (A)
july 2006 tour in italy
june 2006 singapore arts festival
december 2005 shanghai arts center
october 2005 romaeuropa festival (it)
june 2005 sonar festival, barcelona
april 2005 tour to vilnius, petersburg, moskau, netherlands & belgium
march 2005 al bustan festival, beirut
november 2004 transakustik abiszett (wien modern)
october 2004 presentation of remix-EP im ARTheater, köln
july 2004 tour in UK
may 2004 royal festival hall / london (with franz hautzinger)
february 2004 konzert haus wien + tour in austria (with franz hautzinger)
october 2003 CD-presentation 'automate' at porgy & bess, wien
october 2003 budapest autumn festival (H)
september 2003 tour in D, NL, B, LUX, CH
februar 2003 royal festival hall / london (mit franz hautzinger)
september 2002 tour in NL, B, D
februar 2002 sendesaal des bayerischen rundfunks (munich)
march 2000 konzerthaus wien (with klangforum wien)
november 1999 cd-presentation 'gemise' at „die theater“ künstlerhaus (wien)
december 1998 wiener museumsquartier „construction sound“
november 1998 berliner „surreale“(berlin)
april 1998 „das festival 1998“ (wien)
Links
