Translator: Alexandra Ciucanu Reviewer: Delia Bogdan
(Yodel singing) ♪ Yodel-lay-hee, yodel-lay-hee, ♪
♪ yodel-lay-hee-lay-hee-hoo ♪
♪ Everybody knows me, I’m the girl from the countryside. ♪
♪ Who came to the city, so - ♪
♪ I can work and I am really popular, Yodel-lay, I sing again ♪
♪ Even if I’m a little behind, As my school colleagues like to say, ♪
♪ I don’t have any designer clothes, wow. ♪
♪ Well then ♪ (Pure yodelling)
(Yodel singing) ♪ Ardelean, Ardelean Show! ♪
(Applause)
It might seem strange,
but I haven’t always wanted to be a singer.
I'd have loved to have been a tourist guide,
or maybe I'd have liked to be a psychologist,
or even a doctor - but I’m afraid of blood.
But the Universe had a totally different plan for me, obviously.
My mother is a singer in the choir of the Cluj Philharmonic.
My father sang with the Cluj Opera as a tenor,
now he teaches singing at a high school in Cluj.
My grandmother was a music theory teacher at the music high school in Oradea,
and my grandfather director of the music school in Oradea
and a bandmaster.
Not a chance, right?
My first on-stage appearance was when I was five.
I played the role of Dolore,
Cio-Cio-San's little boy, in the opera "Madame Butterfly".
My only task in that opera was to play with a wooden boat
while my mother, Cio-Cio-San, was performing hara-kiri behind me.
I don’t want to explain to you what hara-kiri means.
And when I say that I didn't have anything to sing in that role,
I say it with the greatest relief,
as no one would have wanted that.
I couldn't sing,
and I suffered from dysphonia - my vocal cords wouldn't come together,
and I was called the "hoarse duckling".
Nonetheless, full of hope,
my parents decided to follow the obvious tradition in our family
and to take me to music school in the first grade,
to study piano.
I had to pass some aptitude tests,
which I didn’t pass with flying colours, but nevertheless passed.
I studied piano for four years,
after which I quit because I didn’t like it.
And I didn’t like music theory either and almost failed class.
So, in the fourth grade I decided to start singing with my voice,
I thought I'd have more success.
Obviously, no, I did not - starting out.
I started to take singing lessons,
to study weekly, with my father, who was teaching singing,
along with a couple of classmates,
and this is how my passion for singing began.
I participated for about 5 years at festivals for Romanian children,
and every time my success was such
that jury members came to me suggesting I try something else.
"Try doing theatre, I don't know - dance - "
However I did not quit - obviously!
I persevered, and I tried to find something of my own,
something representative of me,
something where I might win prizes.
So one day, I discovered a technique, that of yodelling.
Yodelling is a music genre
that comes from Switzerland, Austria, Germany - somewhere around there -
It basically appeared
when the shepherds on the hills
tried to call their sheep from another hill, something like:
"Yodel-lay, yodel-lay, yodel-lay-hoo",
and the sheep came.
I wanted to learn this technique,
not to call sheep, but to sing,
even when my surname's Băcila, from the Romanian for shepherd.
So someone in my family was once a shepherd.
Anyway, all this aside, I started to learn to yodel.
I started to practise at home,
and my father washing the dishes turned the tap on hard
when I was rehearsing, so as not to hear me.
Until one day, when, instead of turning the tap on harder,
he turned it down,
because it seemed to him that something sounded quite good.
A few days later, I went to singing class and said:
"Dad, I want to sing something for you!"
And I sang a country song with yodelling, and we were both like this -
Because even I could not believe that it actually sounded good.
At the next competition I participated in, I took first prize,
and for the first time people came up to me saying:
"Wow! What talent - what - ah -" What!?
So, for the next few years, I kept taking prizes yodelling and so on,
until I got bored and said I wanted to do something else,
but still with yodelling - I didn’t want to give up on yodelling.
So, I thought about composing something myself:
a song with yodelling, in Romanian.
That was almost impossible
because I had quit music in fourth grade
and didn't have the first idea.
So I put the challenge to several composers from Romania,
of which some asked, "What's that?"
Others said, "Nothing I like", and others said plain "No".
In 2013, I won a festival at Băile Herculane,
where, on the jury,
they had Mihai Trăistariu, Doina Moroșanu and many others,
including a very nice composer from Vaslui.
A Moldavian guy, yes.
This Moldavian guy was well renowned for his out-of-the-ordinary compositions,
funny and so on.
I thought I should try him as well;
he was the only one I'd not tried before.
So at the end I said - his name was Bulete [potato ball] -
At the end I asked,
"Bulete, would you write me a song with yodelling?"
And he said, "Yes!"
So, I started to rehearse,
to create some yodel patterns in my mind for the song chorus,
to think about what it would sound like,
with the intention of registering it for a festival,
the biggest children's music festival in Romania,
the one at Mamaia, which was in six months from then.
So, I kept rehearsing,
and three weeks before the selection for the festival,
woke up to the fact that I had no song.
Bulete was not answering his phone, was nowhere to be found,
and so I gave this idea up, too.
So one night, my dad wrote politely to him:
"We are sorry. Our collaboration's at an end. It didn't work.
All there is to it."
An hour later, Bulete calls,
"Nooo! Mr. Băcila, please, please, no! I've just found it!"
"What did you find, Bulete?"
"I found it! - er - I didn't know what text to use for the song,
but now I’ve spoken with a friend of mine who asked me, 'Where is this girl from?'
I said, 'From Ardeal [Transylvania]', at which he said, 'Then use "well then".'"
So this is where the story of "Ardelean Show" begins.
"Ardelean Show" is a song in which a girl from the country
who, once arrived in the city,
tries to fit in, wears high heels,
talks on her smartphone for all to see, and so on.
And Bulete has got me perfectly with this song
because I can barely stand on these 3 cm heels,
and I try so hard not to speak with a Transylvanian accent.
I participated at the Mamaia festival.
I won the festival trophy.
And since then I’ve sung this song everywhere I could.
And every time I was successful because everyone laughs,
because, well now, let's see,
when people laugh, at least they laughing and not crying.
(Applause)
The song did not reach the big TV or radio stations,
but it was sung by many children and teenagers in Romania.
On Facebook it has over two million views and 50,000 shares,
and comments like: "Ha ha ha!"
Not long ago we put another proposal to Bulete:
to make a sequel to "Ardelean Show".
Because if these stories with some reality are catchy,
why not make one of my real story of recently moving to Bucharest.
I’m trying to reach the light at the end of the tunnel
of the Romanian music industry... which is far off, believe me.
So, maybe, in part three of "Ardelean Show",
we will find out if I succeeded.
Thank you!
Someone offstage: Wait! Wait! Will you sing something more for us?
Ilinca: What should I sing? "Ardelean Show", right?
I’ll sing the second verse.
♪ And the countryside, oh, well then, it's beautiful ♪
♪ Oh, well then, oh Lord, oh well then ♪
♪ From the scythe to city girl classes, ♪
♪ Yodel-lay, to school, oh well then! ♪
♪ Now in the city, well then, you need to be stylish, ♪
♪ I do not know what that is - honest! ♪
♪ At the disco and in the street terraces, ♪
♪ Yodel-lay, beautiful, well then! ♪
Thank you.
(Applause)