SOAS Concert Series

What a beautiful evening and fitting finale to the SOAS Concert Series for this academic year. Congratulations to all the artists and team

Sitar, Armenian Flute, Egyptian Songs and a workshop! - https://mailchi.mp/soas/concerts

One of the most important events of the year for the SOAS Music Department is the Final Performance Exam.

You can support our incredible cohort of Music Students by attending this free and open-to-all event on Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th June, featuring instruments and musical styles from all over the world.

Just turn up to the Brunei Gallery, SOAS - there is no need to register

Just two-and-a-bit weeks to go until Baluji Srivastav graces the SOAS Concert Series stage

Here is a video for you all of Baluji performing at The Purcell Room, Southbank Centre with Jazz Orient

Introducing Baluji Shrivastav www.baluji.com Baluji Shrivastav is a multi instrumentalist who lives in London UK. This footage was taken from a performance at The London South Bank (The P...

Concerts in May and June

March brings you daffodils and music from Tajikistan, India, Afghanistan and Armenia - https://mailchi.mp/soas/februaryconcerts-6460164

We've just sent a 50% voucher Oslo, Hackney to our SOAS Concert Series Newsletter subscribers. Sign up here to get news, announcements about upcoming concerts and exclusive offers from friends of SOAS Concerts http://eepurl.com/ibCjCD

We've got two beautiful concerts for you this February

Lunar New Year Celebrations at SOAS | Celestial and Explosive music from China and beyond

Lunar New Year Celebrations at SOAS | Thursday Feb 15th In one month, the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre will resound with the celestial sounds of the pipa, guqin, dagu drums, cymbals, gongs, and clappers as Cheng Yu and Beibei Wang curate a rich musical celebration of the new Lunar Year. Tickets are £10 or £5 for concessions and you can buy them usi...

One week to go | Stringed instruments of India concert at SOAS -

One week to go | Stringed instruments of India concert at SOAS It's just a week to go until the SOAS Concert Series stage is graced by five performers from India who make up the beautiful acoustic project 49Strings.  Tickets are selling fast, so if you're planning to come, please reserve your place using the link below, to avoid disappointment on the night. O...

Stringed instruments of India | Friday 1st December -

Stringed instruments of India | Friday 1st December I'm delighted to invite you to join us for the very first UK performance by 49Strings, a unique quintet of incredibly talented musicians from India. They showcase a number of beautiful instruments which boast a total of... forty-nine strings :-) You might know some of the musicians involved already....

Do we know any classically trained violinists in Berlin?

Welcoming Moushumi Bhowmik back to SOAS 🙏🏼💕

Slow Listening with Arnold Bake's Recordings from Bengal, 1931-1956

A talk by Moushumi Bhowmik

Moushumi Bhowmik is a singer, writer and practice-led researcher of Bengali music, based in Kolkata, India. She has been working for over two decades across eastern India, Bangladesh and the UK, collecting songs with which she has created, with others, a rich and diverse online repository of field recordings from Bengal entitled The Travelling Archive (www.thetravellingarchive.org). It is an archive of archives, for it holds not only her own work but that of others whose work overlaps with her's. Moushumi holds a PhD from the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University for her work on the wax cylinder and other recordings of Arnold Bake from Bengal. Her main interest is in studying sound as a way of knowing, and her work revolves around questions of home, homelessness, borders, homeland(s) and belonging. She writes in Bengali and English.

Free and open to all!

Another exciting line up of speakers in the SOAS Music Research Seminar this term - all welcome!

Welcome ,
And to the SOAS stage!

So excited to collaborate with the and participate in festival for a celebration of London's awesome international music scene

Come and join us for a beautiful evening and the launch of a new SOAS Season of music

SOAS Concert Series is about to enter its 23rd edition! Expect some reminiscing over the next few weeks as we celebrate some of the highlights of the past years. Here's a treat for you - listen to this stunning concert of Alevi and Anatolian music organised by Merlyn Driver

Britain Alevi Federation - SOAS University Concert

After the sell-out success of our Arabic Open Mic Night last winter, we're collaborating once again with to bring you a night of new talent, singalong joy and songs on Wednesday November 1st.
Two slots left for musicians and singers game for performing songs and music from the Arabic-speaking world... What will you contribute??

Due to high demand we have decided to open up two more spots for this course starting tomorrow! Book your place now.

Honoured by UNESCO, Mongolian Khöömii is a style of overtone/harmonic voicing where one person voices multiple distinct pitches simultaneously. It originates from the central Asian plateau, particularly the Altai & Sayan mountain regions of Mongolia and Tuva. The nomads of these parts have discovered how to sing melodies initially inspired by the imitation of their intimate connections to their natural surroundings: mountains, streams, animals, lakes, and the harsh winds of the steppe... both physically and within their belief systems.

This workshop enables you to sing and listen to your own overtones, discovering unknown depths and heights of your voice through these enchanting sounds. So if you're curious to explore your vocal harmonics this way, join us this June.

New dates for this amazing workshop! Join us 17-21 July.

Whatever your instrument, here's a chance to play some authentic Roma music from virtuosic Serbian Roma Violinist Branko Ristic, and accordionist Faith Ristic. The course will look at melodies, improvisation, trills and rhythms within different pieces. All levels and instruments welcome - arrangements and tuition will be customized to the instruments present.

Branko Ristic, 'a performer that Paganini would be proud of' [BBC Radio 3], is one of the few Roma Violinists performing in the UK, and is recording artist on Emir Kusturica's films. He and Faith are releasing their next album with assistance from The No Smoking Orchestra [Riverboat Records], and have a hands on, authentic approach to teaching the specific elements of this music.

The amazing Balinese Gamelan workshop is coming up next week with Andy Channing.

Exciting news! Andy will be joined by the Balinese musician/teacher in residence Dewa Ketut Alit Adnyana, formerly of the group Cudamani, now teaches at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.

A unique opportunity to learn to play the sweet-sounding seven-tone Balinese gamelan based at SOAS. A gamelan is an elaborate percussion orchestra, comprising bronze gongs and metallophones which play complex interlocking melodic and rhythmic patterns led by a pair of drums. This particular gamelan, the semar pegulingan saih pitu, is unusually beautiful and is the only one of its kind in the UK. Students will be encouraged to play all the instruments in the ensemble and will learn a traditional piece of Balinese music.

Amazing opportunity coming up on 19 June!

A two-hour workshop with the masters of highlife at SOAS. Book your place for £20.

Highlife is a hugely influential style of music originating mainly in Anglophone West Africa, that has thrived for nearly 100 years to date. Its highly adaptive nature means it has absorbed everything from jazz big band to Latin to Caribbean to Funk and Roots Reggae over the years, and has seeped into the music of other diasporic regions both within and outside the continent. It's a major component of Fela's Afrobeat and Tony Allen's unique drum patterns, for example.

Phil and band, with special guest Alfred Bannerman, will play a short set featuring classic Ghanaian hilife songs as well as original tunes that blend hilife with newer grooves and modern improvisation. We will discuss the history of the music, the blends of influences we use for our tunes, and encourage any musicians present who want to join us to try out playing in these genres - for which we'll provide charts and musical guidance as required.

Tickets through the link in bio.

Amazing performance as part of from and Aref Durvesh 🔥

Photos 🙏🏼

Sama Arts – Traditional and contemporary South Asian arts Sama Arts Network is one of the UK’s oldest and most influential arts organisations in the genre of traditional and contemporary South Asian arts. It also presents Orchestral, Jazz and World Music. What’s On 13 May 2023 / 7:30pmConcertIrfan Mohammed Khan - Sarod Deepa Hattangady Karnad - Khyal S...

Connecting Futures

The Khushwant Singh Literary Festival London is a labour of love, to promote the legacy of Khushwant Singh (KS) - eminent author, scholar, journalist and iconoclast.



Next weekend at SOAS!

Good news – the Mbira workshop for 2023 is back! Your teachers Linos Wengara and Tim Lloyd have a lifetime's experience with Zimbabwean traditional music and spiritual culture and will guide you through this introduction to a very special instrument.

Mbira, the national instrument of Zimbabwe, is used in Shona spiritual ceremonies to call upon the spirits passed down through generations, through a repertoire of ancient songs. More recently, it has also found its way into popular music.

In this wonderful course, you will:

- learn some of those ancient songs, progressing to add vocals & variations

- study new ways of hearing melodies & polyrhythms

- discuss the spiritual meanings & culture of Mbira music