TINY STRINGS, BIG SOUND
They’ve plucked their way into Windsor Castle, Carnegie Hall and China. Now, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is tinkling across America with a set list Tiny Tim never imagined: a mix of Tchaikovsky, Nirvana and AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
And that, says one longtime orchestra member, is partly what makes the little uke so great.
“It has no baggage,” Will Grove-White tells The Post from London. “If you play the violin, people will expect classical or folk music . . . but you get your ukulele out, and people don’t know what music it will make. It’s a weird, infectiously happy instrument that offers lots of possibilities.”
Since the troupe started in 1985, it’s attracted many celebrity fans (“David Bowie loved our version of ‘Life on Mars’”) and at least one pretender, a German group that called itself the United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra until the British group sued and won.
Grove-White joined the eight-member, singing-and-strumming band in 1989, when he was 16, having started playing just a year or two before.
“The ukulele is a very quick instrument to learn,” he notes. “There are only four strings and you can get a wide variety of chords very easily.” It comes in four sizes, from soprano to bass, and it’s cheap, costing as little as $20.
No matter the price, the uke is prized by Queen Elizabeth II, which is how the orchestra came to play for her 90th birthday celebration.
“The one bit of advice they gave us before we went onstage was, ‘Don’t gawk!’” Grove-White says. At one point, another entertainer on the program asked Prince Harry to borrow one of their ukes and strum along. So how did the prince do? Says Grove-White, diplomatically: “He was a perfect gentleman!”
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plays Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., April 5 at 7 p.m.; tickets $15to $25; LPR.com