Not so long ago, ORIENT sounded the famous song “Turkmen Steppe” performed by Hugh Stanley Philpott, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Moreover, the Ambassador of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II sang the song in Turkmen language.
This video has earned its share of likes on social media, capturing the hearts of many music fans.
It all started when, on a cold December day, a man of European appearance came to our ORIENT editorial office, and in Russian but with a strong foreign accent said that he would like to congratulate the Turkmen people and their leader on the holiday of neutrality.
In the course of communication, it turned out that the heart of the Ambassador was conquered by Turkmen songs. Especially “Turkmen sahrasy”, which amazed him with its melodiousness and poetry of words.
After our guest sang a couple of verses, we had an idea to record this song performed by Mr. Ambassador. This opportunity made him happy, perhaps, even more than us.
Very quickly (skillful hands need no time), using the voice range of Mr. Philpott, we recorded a phonogram, the overall sound and arrangement of which he liked. All that remained was to record the voice.
The recording itself went very quickly and easily. It looked more like not a laborious process, but a light musical warm-up. And this is not surprising, because, as they say in the East, if you follow the right path and your thoughts are pure, then this path will be easy for you.
After the video was released in ORIENT, everyone I had to communicate with, even the famous professional musicians in Turkmenistan, said nothing but enthusiastic words about our endeavour.
After that, we had a new idea to show not only the beautiful places of Turkmenistan, as it was in the first version of the video, but also how this Turkmen song, performed by Her Majesty’s Ambassador, was born.
… Now Mr. Philpott is in his homeland and through the embassy staff he conveyed Happy New Year greetings and a lot of good wishes to the staff and visitors of the ORIENT website.
And we, in turn, congratulate Mr. Philpott on the upcoming holiday and wish him success in his work, good health and the same creative success in the new year, as was the case with the song “Turkmen Steppe”.
And as a New Year’s gift, we invite the Ambassador and all visitors to our site to watch a video of how this music video was born.
Aleksandr BAYRIYEV