The highly talented cellists practise and play a daily eight hours for years on end: on four steel strings! “Ciao Cello” accompanies them throughout one summer at the renowned, highly demanding competition TONALi. They visit schools and students who have never heard a cello in their life, but are the ones to award the audience prize. And they play before Europe's greatest music experts who decide on who will be awarded the considerable prize money. TONALi is Germany's most highly endowed, privately funded award for highly talented classical musicians. The competition is unrelenting. But in the end, they all sit by the River Elbe, drinking cocktails, some of them celebrating a victory, some of them converting their frustrations into new energy and passion for playing: “We didn't lose; we just didn't win.”