The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) is a British musical ensemble founded in 1985 by George Hinchliffe and Kitty Lux. The orchestra features ukuleles of various sizes and registers from soprano to bass. The UOGB is best known for performing musically faithful but often tongue-in-cheek covers of popular songs and musical pieces from a wide variety of music genres taken "from the rich pageant of western music". The songs are often performed with a reinterpretation, sometimes with a complete genre twist, or well known songs from multiple genres are seamlessly woven together. Songs are introduced with light hearted deadpan humour, and juxtaposition is a feature of their act, the members of the orchestra wear semi-formal (black tie) evening dress and sit behind music stands, in a parody of a classical ensemble.
The UOGB has purposely remained an independent music group, unsigned to any record label. Along with Lux and Hinchliffe, David Suich and Ritchie Williams are original members; Hester Goodman, Will Grove-White, Jonty Bankes, Peter Brooke Turner joined in the early 1990s, Leisa Rea joined in 2003, Ben Rouse in 2014 and Laura Currie in 2021. Lux died in 2017, two years after retiring from the orchestra due to chronic ill health. Over the years the UOGB has released over 30 albums, but have spent most of their time touring around the world.
The UOGB has consistently received critical praise from the media for its concerts. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has been called "not only a national institution, but also a world-wide phenomenon". The UOGB has also often been credited for being largely responsible for the current world-wide resurgence in popularity of the ukulele and ukulele groups.
Formation The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (UOGB) was formed in London in 1985 when the multi-instrumentalist and musicologist George Hinchliffe gave his friend the post-punk singer Kitty Lux a ukulele for her birthday, after she had expressed an interest in learning more about harmony. After first playing together, they purchased a few ukuleles for some of their friends, including David Suich and Richie Williams. Williams recalled that his first ukulele cost "£17 with wholesale discount". Hinchliffe named the new musical group with a deliberate oxymoron, 'The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain', "and suddenly we were the world's first ukulele orchestra". The ukulele was selected for its musical versatility rather than its novelty value. Hinchliffe informed The Chicago Tribune that the original idea included turning a derided instrument which lacked a serious repertoire of its own into a respected concert instrument. It was an "outsider instrument" with a "blank slate" that was not limited by the conventions of either classical or rock music. Hinchliffe informed the Houston Chronicle that the post punk idea was for the orchestra to be an "antidote to pomposity, egomania, cults of personality, rip-offs, music-business-standard-operational nonsense and prima donnas", the orchestra members had previously worked in various music genres but were tired by the conventions, genre stereotyping and pretentiousness within the music industry. UOGB has remained an independent music act which has deliberately not signed to a record label. Hinchliffe stated to the Yorkshire Post the idea of the UOGB was to have bit of fun "where we're not having the agents and the managers and the record companies dictating terms".
History The UOGB's first gig was at the Roebuck pub, just off Trinity Church Square in London. Although it had been intended to be a one-off, it was a sell out and after just one more performance the orchestra was on national radio. For a while the orchestra had a regular monthly session in the back room at the former Empress of Russia pub in Islington, London. Within three years the orchestra had appeared live on BBC Radio 1 and BBC One Television, released an album and performed at the WOMAD festival.
Hester Goodman, Will Grove-White, Jonty Bankes, Peter Brooke Turner all joined the orchestra during the early 1990s. In 1995 the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performed at the 50th anniversary of the Victory in Europe Day celebrations in London's Hyde Park before an estimated audience of 170,000. Leisa Rea joined in 2003.
For most of its existence the orchestra has been on actively touring the world from places ranging from Spitsbergen, Svalbard in the Arctic Circle to Chongqing Taindi Theatre in China. They have performed at diverse venues and events from local village halls to world famous venues including Ronnie Scott's jazz club, The Royal Festival Hall, the UK Houses of Parliament, Cambridge Folk Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Hay Festival, Glastonbury Festival, New York's Carnegie Hall, and the Sydney Opera House.
In 2005 the orchestra planned to release as a single their popular reinterpretation of Kate Bush's art pop song "Wuthering Heights", reworked as a swinging cocktail-jazz crooning number—complete with a Cab Calloway-style "Heathcliffe!" call and response. They were prevented from doing so, and instead they released a prohibition-era honky-tonk rendition of "Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" (a 2002 hip hop song by Ms. Dynamite). The UOGB cover reached No. 78 in the official UK pop charts.
On Tuesday 18 August 2009 the UOGB performed a concert as part of the BBC Proms 2009 Season at London's Royal Albert Hall, where they were the fastest selling late night prom in history. The concert included a version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy in which at least 1,000 audience members with ukuleles participated. The performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and received critical acclaim. They returned to the Albert Hall in 2012. Ben Rouse joined the UOGB in 2014. For their 2014 tour of China, the British Council described the UOGB as an orchestra "celebrated for its rapport with audiences, and eliciting a joyous feel-good reaction". In 2016 the UOGB entertained Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle at a private party to celebrate the queen's 90th birthday.
The orchestra has appeared on a wide range of television and radio programs both in the UK and internationally. The UOGB has collaborated with David Bowie, Madness, Robbie Williams, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), the Kaiser Chiefs, the Ministry of Sound, and the film music composer David Arnold. While the orchestra sell its albums directly from their official web site, most of their income is derived from touring with 110 concerts a year according to the New Zealand Stuff news website (while the British Council stated in 2014 that over the previous 29 years the UOGB had performed a higher figure of 9,000 concerts).
Online performances during COVID-19 During the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, Orchestra's members unable to tour due to the lockdowns and separated in their various homes released 13 music videos as a group on YouTube, called the Ukulele Lockdown series (these were collected together and released as the virtual opening concert for the 2021 San Francisco Performances PIVOT Festival), plus a series ukulele video tutorials and other ukulele videos, followed by five original 'The Ukulele World Service' online pay to view concerts. In 2021, Laura Currie became a full time member of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. She had previously been a stand-in since 2019 and had toured with the orchestra, she edited the lockdown videos.
Line-up Since 2005 UOGB performed as eight or seven musician vocalists with ukuleles in various registers including: sopranino, soprano, concert, tenor, baritone, and a bass ukulele.
Members (as of 2022) Information from the official UOGB website. George Hinchliffe (joint founder 1985)(also the UOGB's music director) David Suich (Joined 1985). Richie Williams (Joined 1985, rejoined 2003) Hester Goodman (Joined 1990) Will Grove-White (Joined 1991) Jonty Bankes (bass ukulele) (Joined 1992) Peter Brooke Turner (Joined 1994) Leisa Rea (Joined 2003) Ben Rouse (Joined 2014) Ewan Wardrop Laura Currie (Joined 2021) Dave Bowie (Joined 1985)
Past members Kitty Lux, band member and co-founder with George Hinchliffe, died on 16 July 2017, aged 59, after suffering from various chronic health issues. Lux recovered from a kidney transplant only days before the Proms concert. She retired from public performances after suffering a stroke in 2015. Some of the UOGB members display a small red and white polka dot bow-tie on their clothing or ukulele, in memory of Lux, who always wore an item of clothing with polka dots while performing.
Artistic style and repertoire
A typical UOGB concert according to The New York Times is a "genre bending array" of musical covers that spans from Richard Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries to the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." The Chicago Tribune reports that the orchestra is "happy to pillage anything from the rich pageant of western music" as it roams freely across the wide range of popular music and art musical genres. The Ukulele orchestra is known for reworking popular song classics, sometimes changing tunes' music genres so that the expectations of the audience are subverted. For instance, the power pop Pinball Wizard turns into a harmonized a cappella with a vaudevillian lead vocal by Hinchliffe, while the Sex Pistol's punk rock call to arms "Anarchy in the UK" is performed in the style of a Simon & Garfunkel cosy campfire sing-along folk song where the audience is encouraged to join in. The group takes George Formby's 1937 song "Leaning on a Lamp-post", but changes it into "Lenin On A Lamppost" performed in a Russian Cossack style.
The Kansas City Star considered the UOGB's medleys as "perhaps their most impressive feats, layering lyrics from disparate sources over a chord progression". Several songs from different genres are combined in one "soup of contrasts" – for example, David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" is melded seamlessly with "My Way", "For Once in My Life", "Born Free", "Substitute", and more. In another piece after a mock argument about what to play next Hinchliffe plays a solo Handel's G minor Suite No. 7 for the Harpsichord, while all the other members sing in turn different songs on top the Handel base "Fly Me To The Moon", "Love Story (Where Do I Begin)", "Autumn Leaves", "Killing Me Softly with His Song", "Hotel California" and "I Will Survive", ending with all genre variations performed simultaneously in harmony together.
All members generate ideas for new pieces and all play around with ways the piece work. The limitations of the ukulele causes the orchestra to think creatively about how to cover a musical piece, popular tunes are broken down to their constituent parts and then with each musician sticking a distinct part, the combination of different soprano, tenor, baritone and bass registers of ukuleles are used (with separate members playing the melody, others the rhythm, others chords on the beat and offbeat etc) to recreate the originals musical textured wall. The Australian stage described the UOGB cover of Wheatus' pop rock "Teenage Dirtbag" as the "same delicacy and finesse as Ludwig's 9th, giving it a whole new complexion" Differentiation during a concert is further created by the fact that each member of the orchestra, each with their own singing style, takes turn to be vocal lead on a cover. The Ukulele Orchestra tries to adapt its programme to match the location of the venue or the occasion, musical numbers with a regional flavour are often included especially when touring overseas, for instance they play Sibelius' Finlandia when they perform in Finland.
Visual image and humour