We do not have any bagpipers involved in the project ( so far!) but perhaps it is the most known of Celtic musical instruments. Everybody has heard of the Scottish bagpipes but you may not know that the Welsh have their own version. Read what piper Ceri Rhys Matthews has to say about his recent visit to Libya in the ´Latest News` Section. A very different project from MPB-BPM, but we share the same desire to work with the ´Roots Music` of different cultures.

The sun was setting on Drj's main square. Giant white camels were galloping around us in a dusty cauldron as we were dancing with the Tuareg tribespeople to the sound of their pipes and drums. It was one of the life-affirming events that inspires an artist for the rest of his life.

The concerts at Drj were awesome. But there was so much more to our visit to Libya. Salah, the British Council's Education Officer, took us to a wedding on the outskirts of Tripoli where we were treated to one of the best exhibitions of piping I have heard in my life, from four Berber master musicians. We played each others' instruments without a word of explanation but with immense enjoyment at hearing, say Libyan tunes on the pibgorn. We sat with each other, played tunes and danced for each other always with awe and joy and understanding. And yet each others' music was new and strange.
This was musical exchange as it should be. I would like to ask two of these pipers to come and play at a village festival I help organise in west Wales, to repay the insights they gave us. Only a lucky handful of people heard our session in contrast to the well-attended and well-received concert in Tripoli.

The audience at Drj was extremely enthusiastic. I felt a little flat after our performance on the first night but was assured by Salah that I was misjudging the reaction. I may have been suffering a little paranoia or else been totally overwhelmed by the build-up. I felt that after speaking in English (my first announcements were in Arabic and Welsh), that a distinct frostiness came from a large element of revolutionary youths in the centre of the audience.

Immediately after the gig and all the next day we were congratulated by similar revolutionary youths on our beautiful music and told that they loved Wales. So I was wrong and Salah was right. Our material consisted of hardcore Welsh pipe and drum music which seemed to be very well received (on the second night after my paranoia had vanished). Our friends who had performed for us privately also performed and were received well. I particularly enjoyed the amount of 'difficult' esoteric traditional music that was delighting the audience of around 5,000 (some estimates 7,000) and the appreciative way that the audience received the music.

Travelling musicians inevitably warm to the person who drives them on tours. They are minders, carers, mind-readers, diplomats, fixers and magicians. They must respond and act quickly to changing circumstances. On this trip this multi-faceted role was filled superbly by General Office Assistant, Sheriff Shebani. It was Sheriff who, thanks to his vast knowledge and intuitive understanding of 'where we were coming from', made it possible for us to dance with the Tuareg tribesmen.

He also put Libya into a personal historical context for us on our 'day off', with a tour of Leptis Magna. Wales, the Phoenicians, tin, the Cassiterides, Carthage, mathematics, the trade in African animals and Welsh gold, the European, Arab and Ancient worlds met under the gate of Septimus Severus.

During a tour of the medieval town of Ghadames my visual senses were reawakened thanks to his dogged perseverance in showing us all the treasures of that town.
And finally he introduced us to a good friend of his, a Tuareg tribeswoman who flirted with me, made my eyes well up with her dignity and blew my mind when she asked me what the ocean sounds like.

Ceri Rys Mattews has produced a series of Welsh traditional music CDs for the Fflach Tradd label