Ukulele musician Peter Brooke Turner shares tales of staying weird on the road

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In modern society, the idea of a lifelong career is one that comes with a lot of stereotypes. In the world of music performance, these stereotypes fall either into a rockstar lifestyle or classical concert halls. Meanwhile, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain falls somewhere in between the two.

While playing covers of the rock greats such as Led Zeppelin or Nirvana, the musicians wear black suits and strum a peculiar little instrument with a music stand in front of them. Neither entirely serious nor completely fanciful, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has persisted through the decades as a form of entertainment that challenges the norms of what musical performance can be.

One of their members, Peter Brooke Turner, spoke with the Center for the Performing Arts about his own experience playing with the orchestra, now celebrating its 40th year of touring.

Around the world and back

As the child of a military man, Turner grew up in multiple different countries. From Portugal to Russia to Brazil, a lifestyle of global travel was something that started young and has returned to him with his time in the orchestra.

“My sort of youth and teenage years was this crazy period of traveling around, meeting lots of different people and cultures. ... Then I had like 30 or 40 years where I didn’t travel at all, you know, it was just like a regular guy in England. And now I’ve kind of gone back to my childhood, ... I’m just traveling all the time, you know,” Turner said.

Leading a life on tour is exhilarating but also exhausting, according to Turner.

“I’ll go to 15 different states on this next tour and people say, Wow, you’re really going to see America. It’s like, ... I’m going to see nothing,” he said. “It’s like I’m in this kind of washing machine with those same settings of backstage airports, theater, [and] hotel.”

With all the travel time in between shows, he said he has indulged in a creative outlet through a one-man act named the “Airline Toilets Theater Company.”

“I’ve taken 1000s of flights. I thought, why didn’t I do a theater company where, you know, I go into the restroom in an airport, I stick my phone on the mirror, and then I do a Shakespeare speech or I sing a song on my ukulele,” Turner said.

Traveling for work may seem like a dream, but of course, work is still work. However, it’s clear that Turner’s passion for performance is something that drives him. While the stress of constant travel isn’t always enjoyable, he said that “the fun part is being on stage.”

'An instrument for the weird'

Turner did not begin his journey in music with the ukulele. As a child, he played the violin, then the trumpet, but neither really stuck with him. The guitar became an instrument he played for many years, which allowed him to learn skills that eventually transferred to the ukulele.

“For some reason, I was just drawn to this strange instrument, but it wasn’t cool to play it then,” Turner said. The community of instrument players was also a very small one. “Anyone who played the ukulele in London, you knew them. Because it was a real kind of outsider instrument.”

As a niche instrument, more often thought to be a hobby than anything else, the ukulele, and the Ukulele Orchestra in particular, didn’t really come up into global popularity until the age of the internet. Listen to a Center for the Performing Arts interview with Turner prior to the orchestra’s 2015 visit.

Now, “It’s a very international instrument. Everywhere we go, there are ukulele pubs and people play it all over the place,” Turner said.

He said his knack for the strange and whimsical instrument is something that he’ll always stick by, regardless of the opinions of others.

“[It’s about] staying weird, basically,” he said. “And eventually the zeitgeist will change, and suddenly you’ll have a job.”

Whether it’s playing a ukulele in a tuxedo around the world or performing in an airport bathroom, Turner never expected that this is what his career would be like.

“When I was your age [...] I didn't really have an idea, you know, what I wanted to do. [...] I knew that I didn't want to do a job where I sat in a long line of people all wearing a suit, all staring at the same bit of paper. But that’s kind of what I do also.”

The future of music is connection

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has existed since 1985, and Turner himself joined them in 1995. After over 30 years of touring with the band, and the advancement of so many new types of technology, Turner said he isn’t sure what the next big thing could be. Artificial intelligence and digital processing is a big part of the music industry, but Turner said that people will always be drawn to the experience of a live performance.

“It’s a pretty amazing thing to actually get people to come out of their houses ... because I can go on YouTube now and see films of, you know, long-dead musicians, but people want to go to the show,” Turner said.

He mentioned a time the orchestra toured in Edinburgh last year and they weren’t able to find a hotel to stay in as the city was full of people coming to see Taylor Swift live in concert.

“They just want to have that human connection now,” he said.

Though they may not be Taylor Swift, the orchestra is still something that brings a lively and unique experience to every audience they play for around the world. As one of the oldest members of the group, Turner has dedicated a large part of his life to the orchestra and he has no plans of quitting anytime soon.

“There aren’t many jobs where, at the end of the day, when you’ve done your work, people come up and say, thank you for coming here and thank you for entertaining us,” he said. “I’m lucky to be doing this and playing for people.”

Experience for yourself all the entertainment and weirdness the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has to offer at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Ariana J. Lee is a marketing communications intern at the Center for the Performing Arts.