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March 5 (UPI) — The world’s first — and possibly only — orchestra to exclusively make music from vegetable instruments was awarded a Guinness World Record after playing 344 concerts over the course of 27 years.
The 11-piece Vegetable Orchestra formed in Vienna, Austria, in 1999, when musicians of various backgrounds came together with the idea of carving veggies into instruments.
“It all started as a joke,” founding member Matthias Meinharter told the BBC in 2019.
He said the founding four members had been signed up for a performance art festival in Vienna.
“We were brainstorming what we could do, and we thought: ‘What is the most difficult thing to play music on?'” he said. “We were making soup together at the time, and one idea led to another.”
The performers have now perfected the art of playing with their food. Their instruments include carrots carved into recorders and leeks into mandolins.
The orchestra was awarded the Guinness World Record for the most concerts by a vegetable orchestra after playing their 344th show.
The musicians said they carve fresh vegetables before every performance, as their instruments only last for about 6 hours before starting to rot or losing their shape.
Any unused vegetables are made into a soup to be served at the concert, and the spent instruments are turned into organic waste to keep the concerts eco-friendly.
The orchestra told Guinness World Records that only one subject is off-limits during their concerts: asking whether the musicians are vegetarians.
“No we are not. Don’t ask again,” they said. “We’ve heard this question 3 million times.”
