Tag Archives: Vienna

Music

Well, one thing you can do is make musical instruments out of them.

Recently I heard a piece on the radio about an orchestra who do this. After the concert they cook their home-made instruments into a tasty vegetable stew or soup which the audience are invited to experience as well as the music.

They are the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, and you can hear some samples on their website.

The samples are mostly quite avant-garde, maybe with elements of free jazz, and there’s definitely no attempt at anything which requires beautifully tuned harmony — but it’s worth listening to. As suggested on the site, the music is certainly very vegetable in nature; some of it sounds as if it’s meant to be played or heard by triffids. One of the longer samples has some impressively saxophone-like sounds, which I think are actually produced by an instrument using a red or green pepper as its bell.

Apparently they do a Kraftwerk cover version, but I think I’d need to hear that to be convinced of the similarity

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually experience one of this orchestra’s performances (and subsequent soup).

Art

Or: you can make art out of them. And quite impressive art, at that. I recently discovered this photo album of watermelon sculptures on Rachel Vo‘s page and I’m impressed. I wasn’t aware that such things existed. Do have a look. (Warning: once you’ve finished enjoying them as art, you may well start feeling hungry and craving fresh fruit.)