The hills are still alive with The Sound of Music.
Nearly 50 years after The Sound Of Music was released, the film remains a Bank Holiday television favourite.
This afternoon, Channel 5 screens a new version starring country singer Carrie Underwood.
The last surviving member of the original seven von Trapp children, Maria, passed away in February, but that didn’t mark the end of the famed Austrian singing family.
A new generation of von Trapps siblings Sofi, 25, Melanie, 23, Amanda, 22, and 18-year-old August are carrying on a famous musical tradition.
Melanie said her great aunt Maria was enthusiastic about the new group.
“She was very supportive. She was 99 when she died and spent many years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea. She was a very special woman.”
The musical talents skipped a generation before Melanie and her siblings, great-grandchildren of Captain Georg von Trapp, took up the mantle.
“Our parents can’t sing a note,” Melanie laughs.
The foursome fell into music by accident.
“Our grandfather, Werner, who was Kurt in the film, taught us Austrian folk songs,” she goes on.
“Someone said we should make an album, and that’s how it started. We were only seven, 10, 11 and 13 years old when we made it.
Over the next decade, the sisters and brother released six albums as The von Trapp Children.
“We decided we couldn’t keep doing the same thing and had to stop or reinvent our sound.
“We met a band called Pink Martini. They’re like a new era of the international folk genre we had been playing.”
The result is a collaborative album, Dream A Little Dream, released next month.
“We’re carrying on a tradition the older generation left behind,” Melanie added.
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