A Cello in the Desert
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2016
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Winner of this year's prestigious BBC/RGS dream journey award is Nina Plapp who sets off from the Isle of Wight with her cello 'Cuthbert' en route to India via Transylvania in a search for the roots of gypsy music.
Nina is a cellist from a large musical family and the energy and rhythms of gypsy music have always mesmerized her. Cuthbert, now 167 years old, has played in many an orchestra and was most recently under the guardianship of Nina's great aunt Bebe.
After a family send-off, Nina and Cuthbert head east on an adventure into the rich musical landscape of the gypsies. They first visit a family in Romania where she immerses herself in the wild rhythms and melodies of the Roma in rural Transylvania. Then they continue to India to seek out the original gypsies. On their way they join a chorus on the train through the desert, get locked inside a cupboard with singing girls in a Rajasthani village and play with the gypsy musicians at a wedding.
If you'd like to apply for next years Journey of a Lifetime Award and make a feature fore Radio 4 about your adventure you have until 2nd November. Look for Journey of a Lifetime on the Royal Geographical Society website. www.rgs.org/journeyofalifetime
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:06.0 | The journey of a lifetime. |
| 0:09.0 | What an incredible thought. |
| 0:12.0 | Sometimes when I'm sat by myself, my mind wonders to where I would go and who I would meet. |
| 0:18.0 | I think it would be somewhere exotic with white sand and turquoise sea, and I'd walk along barefoot and know that I wouldn't see another living soul for a long time. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm Riana Dylan and this seriously interesting story is brought to us by someone who did |
| 0:34.2 | do everything she'd daydreamed about. |
| 0:36.6 | Cellis, Nina Pla, takes us on a four-week trip from her family home on the Isle of White |
| 0:41.8 | at the bottom of the UK with about 140,000 people, |
| 0:45.8 | 4,000 miles to Rajasthan in Northern India, all were the cello in tow. |
| 0:57.5 | It's the music she's searching for, the gypsy folk that she's always loved. |
| 1:00.3 | Music bombs her to people at home and away and it's a constant tie between generations of her family. |
| 1:07.0 | From BBC Radio 4, this is seriously, and this is Nina, with a cello in the desert. |
| 1:15.0 | I'm on the Isle of White with my Auntie B B b b b and I'm playing duets. We're in Beebi's living room. It's full of pianos and music stands. She's been my |
| 1:39.1 | cello teacher since I was about three. Bea is a steer, with short silver hair and immaculate fingernails, |
| 1:46.0 | and she catches my wrong notes with a little grimace. |
| 1:49.0 | My Nan comes in with teas, a blonde bombshell wearing bright red lipstick, a former ballet dancer. |
| 1:57.0 | She rolls her eyes at her sister's playing. |
| 2:00.0 | After all, they have lived together for 50 years. |
| 2:04.0 | Hello, this is the BBC, making a crawling of Nina Marie Plepp. |
| 2:15.0 | That's me. I'm the 30-something dishevelled looking blonde, |
| 2:18.0 | sitting opposite BB in Christmas-themed pyjamas. |
... |
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