SOAS Music Department

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.

Monday 3rd June 2024
East Asia, West Africa, Latin America
15:00-18:30

Tuesday 4th June 2024
The Middle East, Southeastern Europe, Latin America, South Asia
15:00-19:00

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

Congratulations to our BA Music graduate (2015, first class) Jasdeep Singh Degun, who was last week awarded the 2024 Instrumentalist award by the Royal Philharmonic Society. He is the first sitarist ever to win an RPS award. The Instrumentalist award is given:

"For the outstanding quality and scope of the performances to a live or digital audience, and the work in any context, of an individual performer on any instrument in the UK."

The RPS award citation states:

"Jasdeep Singh Degun shows us all the beauty and boundless possibilities of the sitar. Rainbows of sound burst from his instrument in the dazzling collaborations of his debut album and his glorious re-telling of ‘Orpheus’ with Opera North. He excels on so many remarkable levels, as a solo performer, team player, composer, director, and role-model."
https://royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/awards/rps_music_awards/latest-winners/instrumentalist

For more about Jasdeep, who has already won several awards in India and the UK, and is acclaimed for his re-working of Monteverdi's Orfeo with Opera North, see https://www.jasdeepsinghdegun.com

Jasdeep Singh Degun Breaking down cultural boundaries with his extraordinary artistry and new approach to composition, virtuoso sitarist, Jasdeep Singh Degun, brings a new energy and vision to both Indian classical and contemporary music.

SOAS PhD Student Helen Anahita Wilson will be presenting her practice research portfolio this coming Tuesday 19 March, at the Horse Hospital (around the corner from SOAS!)

An award-winning composer and sound artist, Helen will be talking about her recent work bringing cancer treatment processes to life through sound and music.

Using repurposed and rewired chemotherapy pumps, bioelectricity from plants used in chemotherapy drugs, and South Indian rhythmic theories, Helen has created a portfolio of sonic works which challenges mainstream cultural representations of breast cancer, bypasses the problems of warfare-related language regarding cancer, and offers a groundbreaking new way of engaging with the body, health, and disease.

SOUNDS LIKE CANCER: Experiments in Sonic Life Writing An evening of performance & conversation with Helen Anahita Wilson, award winning composer and sound artist.

A fantastic concert coming up at SOAS on March 18: top musicians Sirojiddin Juraev and Khurshed Ibrohimzoda from Tajikistan will be performing Shashmaqom, with dance by the outstanding Marina Sabirova. Unmissable.

Enjoy the beauty of Shashmaqom with master musicians from Tajikistan! Join us for an inspiring and soulful performance of Shashmaqom with leading performers from Tajikistan!

A new line up for a new term!

Do join us at the SOAS Music Research Seminar - all welcome!

Calling all Kora lovers!

We're holding a screening and discussion of Professor Lucy Durán's new film, "Ballaké Sissoko, Kora Tales"

14 November, 3-5pm in Room G52

All welcome!

Original title: Ballaké Sissoko, une histoire de Kora
Directed by Lucy Durán & Laurent Benhamou
Duration 52:36’ | French and Bamanankan with French and English subtitles

The story of the kora, one of Africa's most iconic and virtuosic instruments, is told here on film. Ballaké Sissoko, the award-winning musician from Mali, takes us on a unique journey in search of the origins and development of the 21-string harp, through legend, history, tradition, and innovation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKBiW_maFUs&ab_channel=WOMEX

SOAS Music PhD student Helen Anahita Wilson was featured on BBC Radio 4 today, with her latest work, linea naturalis.

A critically acclaimed pianist and composer, Helen was inspired by her own cancer treatment and a visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden.

Every single sound in linea naturalis is derived from bioelectricity in plants with medicinal and healing properties. These plant signals were then converted into musical data, expressing their own special patterns of pitch and rhythm: the petal recordings are very active with a variety of different notes and rhythms whilst the branch and trunk recordings are slow moving, with drone-like textures.

Linea naturalis can be listened to by anyone, anywhere, but is dedicated to people undergoing treatment for cancer. Many chemotherapy and other anti-cancer treatments are derived from plants: exactly the same plants recorded in this piece of music. Linea naturalis offers a means for people to connect back to nature whilst receiving treatment in the sterile, unnatural environment of a hospital or cancer centre.

This music aims to demystify cancer treatment through highlighting the natural derivation of many drugs. Helen hopes to make the experience of treatment a little less daunting by offering this calming and reassuring music to listen to. Linea naturalis is 45 minutes long: this is the average time it takes for the contents of a chemotherapy drip bag to enter the body so ideal to listen to when receiving treatment in hospital.

https://helenanahitawilson.bandcamp.com/track/linea-naturalis-we-are-all-bioelectrical-beings

https://youtu.be/6UZecqRm1Bo?si=UmNAF6CrYXtzHiqy

https://www.maggies.org/about-us/news/music-to-listen-to-while-having-chemo/

"linea naturalis" by Helen Anahita Wilson featured on BBC Radio 4 Today on 03.11.2023 A feature about "linea naturalis," composed by Oram Award winner Helen Anahita Wilson, which converts the bioelectrical signals from medicinal plants used in...

The first blog from our Newton International Fellow Xiaoshi Wei on a collection of Kazakh sibizgi recordings now archived in the British Library

Ripples of history: Sıbızğı recordings from northern Xinjiang The Sıbızğı Recordings from Northern Xinjiang Coll...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHMDf1BjjJA&ab_channel=PhilDawson

Phil Dawson and Gnostic Hilife feat. Kari Bannerman live at Ronnie Scott's ...

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.

Join us next Tuesday for our next session of the Music Research Seminar!

3-5pm in G52 (SOAS University of London)

November 29
Amandine Pras (York) and Emmanuelle Olivier (CNRS)
Creative uses of the DAW in Bamako recording studios (Mali)

DJ SUMMIT coming up on Thursday!

The panel will explore the art, ethics & craft of DJing with an expert panel from a range of music scenes – DJ scholar Lynnée Denise, techno legend Colin Dale, DJ & author Harold Heath, Run Dem Crew founder DJ Charlie Dark & SOAS’s own DJ Nabihah Iqbal.

This will be followed by an afterparty at the Student Union bar. There will be guest sets by Nabihah and some of our incredible panelists, festival team and Tim Garcia - DJ, record label owner and SOAS music student.

The panel is free to attend and ticket for the afterparty is £5 with all profits going to SOAS Radio Society to provide DJ training opportunities.

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dj-summit-afterparty-tickets-416081600267?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Free tickets to Palestinian events and more in London -

Free tickets to Palestinian events and more in London As part of EFG London Jazz Festival, Palestinian composer and Oud player Saied Silbak presents his newest album “The Small Things”. Free ticket link

Join us next Tuesday 15 November, 3-5pm for the SOAS Music Research Seminar
Room G52 - all welcome!

Martyn Smith (University of Sheffield)

City Music Versus Urban Noise:
The Hell of Modern Sound in Japan

Abstract:
Many scholars have argued that the Japanese have a cultural propensity to embrace noise in public space. Yet little research has been done on the history of urban noise in Japan. This talk explains how, far from passively accepting or culturally embracing noisy cities, the Japanese have long struggled with the definition, measurement, and control of unwanted sound. Urban noise and the idea of the ‘modern’ soundscape have often worked within a feedback loop that amplifies politically driven debates about the nature of ‘modernity’, the meaning of ‘civilisation’, and the nature of the Japanese people. Since the late nineteenth century, authorities’ concern for urban noise stemmed from a fear of embarrassment because of the low level of ‘civilisation’ amongst the people. As groups of scientists, engineers, and acousticians began to come together to debate solutions, they foregrounded urban noise as a problem of traffic, transport, and civic construction, not everyday life. Noisy neighbours, street noise, or people going about their daily business came to be heard as ‘urban music’ in contrast to ‘urban noise’. This talk will focus on these debates and how, after 1945,an increasing emphasis on individual responsibility gradually refocused urban noise as a problem of everyday life.

The Festival of Ideas is in full swing. Three events and two parties coming up next week! On Thursday, a beautiful discussion about dance with DJ and co-founder of Jazz re:freshed Justin McKenzie, DJ Mantra (fabric), choreographer & researcher Dr ‘H’ Patten and writer Christian Adofo, The talk will be chaired by Emma Warren. Then we're heading to the top floor of our local Marquis of Cornwallis for an actual dance.

‘H’ Patten is the Artistic Director of Koromanti Arts and ‘H’ Patten Dance Theatre Company, and the author of Reading Religion and Spirituality in Jamaican Reggae Dancehall Dance: Spirit Bodies Moving (2022).

Justin McKenzie co-founded hip hop record label and events unit Uprock Recordings in 2000, which led to the creation of the music & arts movement Jazz re:freshed, where broken beats, nu soul and hip hop meets future jazz.

Mantra is a DJ, radio broadcaster, events producer and community organiser. Co-founder of Rupture, a drum and bass and jungle club night and record label, she has been committed to pushing the boundaries of the music and improving inclusion and diversity on the dance floor.

Christian Adofo is an established writer, cultural curator and author of A Quick Ting On Afrobeats (2022). His work explores the intersection of heritage and identity in music and culture.

Join us! Also next week, Scattered Sounds live podcast recording on Tuesday, Sound & Solidarity listening session + SHUBZ at DLT on Friday 11th.

DEBATING DANCE + AFTERPARTY THINKING THROUGH MOVING

Join us next week for a very special two day workshop with Marimbea!

Marimbea designs remarkable experiences to immerse anyone in the music, dance, cuisine and other ancestral knowledge from the Colombian Pacific coast, generating alternative sources of income for its inhabitants, enabling knowledge exchanges, and cultivating support networks for its cultural agents.

Content session 1

Rhythms: Bambuco Viejo and Bunde Callejero

- Brief introduction to the context of the Afro-Colombian Pacific Coast Communities.
- Brief introduction to the context of the Rhythms.
- Rotative practice of the ensemble and its parts (practice based on traditional method): Bombo, Cununos, Guasás, Marimba de Chonta and voices.

Content session 2

Rhythms: Juga and Bunde Religioso

- Brief introduction to the context of the Rhythms.
- Rotative practice of the ensemble and its parts (practice based on traditional method): Bombo, Cununos, Guasás, Marimba de Chonta and voices.
- Introduction to the basics of traditional dance of this Rhythms.

*Expect to play most of the time during the sessions, questions about context and technique will be welcome during the sessions. We recommend to participate in both sessions if possible, to achieve a deeper insight.

Book your place here! https://store.soas.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/concert-series/concert-series/afrocolombian-weekender-at-soas

Congratulations Richard Widdess

Gũlā: Music for a sacred time - Screenworks Gũlā: Music of a Sacred Time arose from a collaboration between Chouette Films, run by two filmmakers Remi and Anna Sowa, and the ethnomusicologist Richard Widdess. The short film features two different Newar musical traditions in the ancient royal city of Bakhtapur in Nepal: dāphā devotional si...

One-off Afro-Colombian Workshop | 50% off Susheela Raman tickets | Free Adnan Joubran tickets -

One-off Afro-Colombian Workshop | 50% off Susheela Raman tickets | Free Adnan Joubran tickets We're delighted to welcome Juan Mindinero and Adrian Sabogal who are on tour from the West coast of Colombia, offering an introduction to Bombo, Cununos, Guasás, Marimba de Chonta and vocal techniques. 

“a bathing in sound…there was something incredible special about her touch on the piano, and this rolling wrist – fluidity – that created this sympathetic ringing from the body of the piano that was really special”

PhD student Helen Anahita Wilson was featured on Radio 3 this week - have a listen (from 52:40)!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dftv

https://www.helenanahitawilson.com/

Freeness - Beck Hunters at Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music - BBC Sounds Corey Mwamba presents Beck Hunters at Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music.

Join us for our next Music Public research Seminar!

OCTOBER 25
ALISHA LOLA JONES (CAMBRIDGE)

SOUNDING OUR SIGNATURES:
TOWARDS A WOMANIST MUSIC RESEARCH

3-5pm in G52, SOAS Main Building

All welcome!

What an incredible time to be at SOAS with so many concerts and events happening. And we have no intention of stopping!

! THIS WEDNESDAY !

Niwel Tsumbu and Éamonn Cagney will be blessing us on the BGLT stage.

With influences ranging from Congolese, Irish, West African, flamenco and more, this will be a soulful performance that we’re most looking forward to.

See you on Wednesday. Ticket link in bio and only £5 for students!

Clip from Black Gate Sessions.

Niwel Tsumbu & Eamonn Cagney | Black Gate Sessions Niwel Tsumbu has developed a reputation as a masterfully elegant and fluent guitarist, vocalist, musician, collaborator and composer. He has performed with t...

We cannot wait for this dance performance by Beeja Dance Company on October 15th. Beeja was started by Anusha Subramanyam – dancer, choreographer, teacher and dance movement therapist – an exciting practitioner of bharatanatyam working ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of its tradition.

The final musical event of Remembering Partition will be a set of songs performed by Wajiha Naqvi and Arka Chakraborty. Named ‘Shikwa’ (Complaint in Urdu), the performance of nazm and ghazals will finish our day’s events. Join us all for this beautiful and important remembering and celebration, on October 15th, on SOAS campus.

As part of the festival programme, Sanju Sahai will also be teaching a 2-hour Tabla workshop for those keen to learn about the instrument.This will take place from 11-1 pm. DM us with interest in this rare opportunity.

Join us tonight for the Performance Fayre!

4.30pm in G53 and from 5 onwards in the DLT.

This is a superb opportunity to hear from the fantastic musicians who teach our students -- a showcase of instruments and styles from across the SOAS regions.

All welcome!

There will be plenty of beautiful music in our October 15th festival. First up on the day and not to be missed will be the album launch of Magpie Robin's Songbook.

The Doyel Pakhir Ganer Katha or ‘Robin-Magpie’s Songbook’ is an album of music featuring songs from the Bangladeshi War of Independence of 1971. It features the voices of Sahana Bajpaie, Samantak Sinha and Sohini Alam as well as beautiful instrumentation from around the world – dotara, daf, oud, guitar, banjo and more. The album is being produced by the Global Music Academy director and SOAS Concert Series ’ Georgie Pope along with her husband, the writer and academic Somnath Batabyal.

Join us on this special occasion as Sohini Alam, Sahana Bajpaie, Samantak Sinha and Oliver Weeks take to the stage to perform this project. We cannot wait.

The incredible Jason Singh has collaborated with cellist Liz Hanks and tabla master Sanju Sahai on a special performance for our Remembering Partition event. 'I will be presenting a 30 minute “works in progress” performance exploring Partition. As well as sound pieces, I will also be reading from family documents connected to the event.' Jason Singh

Join us in remembering, sharing and listening.

It is our great pleasure to announce the **Music Department Performance Fayre**

Friday, 7th October
16:30-17:00 in G53 (for Gamelan!)
17:00-19:30 in the Djam Lecture Theatre (DLT)

We are so honoured to feature a number of our brilliant and established practice tutors specialising in various Asian, African and Latin American traditions.

Those students who have taken (or plan to take) the Performance modules are expected to attend as this would be a great opportunity to see a broad range of instruments/genres showcased by great performers of the respective traditions, perhaps choosing one of them to study over this academic year.

All are welcome to join and enjoy the musical diversity we host at SOAS!