SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 15, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — George Hinchliffe and his fellow musicians played for Queen Elizabeth and toured the world, entertaining audiences in such locales as Chongqing, China and Svaldbard, near the North Pole.
Hinchliffe and his ensemble members use their singing voices and about four strings apiece when they travel as the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. On Monday, they bring the popular and offbeat act — known for great musicianship and uniquely British pomp and humor — to Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah.
The “orchestra,” of usually about seven to 10 players, tends to begin its concerts with members in formal attire, seating themselves in straight-backed chairs behind black metal music stands. Then they cut loose.
What comes next could be anything from classical music to jazz, to pop and beyond. It could be “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” with unexpected choreography, “Pinball Wizard” sung and strummed in the style of an English sea Shanty, or a voice and uke take on “Teenage Dirtbag.”
Hinchliffe, who serves as director and who founded the orchestra nearly 40 years ago with the late Kitty Lux, remembers the time the ensemble dared, on a Detroit tour stop, to play a jokey version of “The Theme from ‘Shaft.'” “Shaft,” an arguably exploitative 1970s TV series, was about “a two-fisted Black private eye,” according to an IMDb description.
But could the no-nonsense town once known as “Murder City” take a joke? Hinchliffe, who recently talked with Gephardt Daily, remembers having doubts.
“I thought, ‘What if the audience in Detroit think that English man singing the ‘Theme from “Shaft”‘ in an English accent, in parody, is not respectful enough?’ But in actual fact, everybody thought it was great and we had a good time. I think not only the humor was appreciated, but also the affection for the music in the first place, which we always have.”
The combination of formality and playful humor has always won over fans.
“The whole thing is what people have described as a bit of fun,” Hinchliffe said. “There’s often a lot of ego and vanity and concern about money and whether the genre is right and whether it’s virtuosic enough. This was kind of the antidote to other things that we’re doing in pop music or rock music or classical music.
“And we thought, ‘Let’s forget about that and just have some fun and not worry about whether we make any money.’ So we said we only have two rules: one, let’s not lose money. And two: let’s have some fun. And indeed, over the years, we’ve managed to achieve those things.”
Being quirky musical misfits has served the ensemble well, Hinchliffe said.
“I suppose lots of people think we don’t quite fit in anywhere, and so that means we can always sneak in. So we’ve taken part in classical music festivals, rock festivals, pop festivals, folk festivals, comedy festivals, literature festivals and food festivals. And we’ve often been the last act on the bill where all the serious things have happened, and they said ‘Let’s have a bit of fun on the last evening.’ So we’ve felt like imposters in lots of different environments.”
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain officially describes itself as “a group of all-singing, all-strumming ukulele players, which believes that all genres of music are available for reinterpretation, as long as they are played on the ukulele.”
Others describing the ensemble tend to use more superlatives. The New York Times described the show as “an oversized dose of unexpected hipness,” adding “They extract more than seems humanly possible from so small and so modest an instrument.”
The Financial Times remarked that “The sophisticated sound they make – both percussive and melodic – is at once hilarious and heartfelt.” The Independent hailed the group’s “Perfectly polished professionalism, threaded through with dry wit and wry humour.” And the late David Bowie once summed up the Ukes as “Wonderfully clever.”
Hinchliffe, a longtime musicologist and educator, said the whole project started with a birthday gift he gave to Lux decades ago, when she was in a women’s acapella group, and a man in a band criticized her technique. Lux (who died at age 59 in 2017) told Hinchliffe she didn’t have the technical vocabulary to defend herself.
“I told her it would be easy enough to learn some chords, and with a ukulele, would be an easy way of getting around me without having to lug around a guitar or a piano or something. So I gave her the ukulele.”
Other musical friends joined in, and the group began learning how many instruments ukuleles can imitate, tackling music of pretty much any genre. Hinchliffe and Lux began to see the potential.
“We thought, if we had the several instruments playing, you’d have quite a bit of energy and attention to spare to look at the audience and engage with the audience,” he said. “And so we talked about that and said, ‘Why don’t we do that? It’s so much easier if you divide the music up, and playing music with other people means that you’re communicating and collaborating, which can be more fun than doing stuff on your own. So that’s how we started.”
So, after half a lifetime of worldwide travel, having musical fun with friends, and not losing money, how happy is Hinchliffe that he didn’t just gift Lux with a book or a birthday cake?
“Well, I probably did buy her those things as well, but they didn’t lead to anything.”
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, back in Utah for the first time in seven year, plays at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Kingsbury Hall, at the University of Utah. For more theater information or tickets, click here.
