The Penguin Cafe Orchestra

The penguin café orchestra

Never before have I been so obsessed with music or the person behind this music as I am now with the wonderful music of the Penguin Café Orchestra, and it founder Simon Jeffes.

I love music and I listen to a wide variety of music from the classical and the opera to the funky and the trance. Most music is entertaining but few music pieces moves your soul.

In classical music, I have obsessed invariably with Ludwig Van’s symphonies. All of them move my soul, especially the fourth movement in the ninth. And I listen to it every day for the past 25 years and my eyes fill with tears every single time.

There is a huge difference between Mozart and Ludwig Van.

Yes Mozart is great and his legacy is enduring and his music is timeless, but there is a difference.

Mozart is nice, it is entertaining and timeless, no doubt. But if you are having a haircut and there is Ludwig Van in the background your soul will be agitated and the haircut will be a different experience than if there was Mozart in the background and everything feels so pleasant. That is the difference.

Recently I have become obsessed with the music of the Penguin Café Orchestra.

This has been going on for almost 2 years now, ever since I saw this film Napoleon Dynamite. Very good film. It had a track at the climax of the movie, when everything sorts itself out for all the people concerned, called “Music for a found harmonium”. I loved it and I waited for the credits to find out who composed it and this is where I stumbled on the band, The Penguin Café Orchestra.

The name itself fascinated me, so I immediately bought 2 CD’s online. From that moment on began my fascination with this band, its music and its founder.

Good job for the editors of the film who put the soundtrack there in the first place. It is such a gratifying experience for me when I see a job well done like that, to the extent that I wished there was a way to call them up and say he guys that was excellent.

The story of the band, and of Simon Jeffe’s, is also so original and affects your view of the band. Just like Ludwig Van’s deafness affects your opinion about his music.

How can someone conceive so much creativity in music and be able to break the mold and move our soul with so much originality and depth and relevance. How can he die at the end of a brain tumor? The tragedy of irony.