Oudmigrations is a research project dedicated to the journeys of ouds, their histories, and the stories attached to their makers, players, and owners. The first Oudmigrations concert series took place in Rome, thanks to the generous support of ISMEO (Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente) and hosting by the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. They explored Read more…
Today is Good! took the stage at the first edition of Siracusa’s Moro Festival on 22 December
Sing no Sad Songs for Me – a cycle of pieces after the poetry of Christina Rossetti. For voice, oud, yayli tanbur, double-bass and tabla Premiered at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, London, on 30 June 2018 My imperialist grandfather Henry Beckles Willson was sent in 1918 to Palestine to decommission Read more…
Called after Ornina, goddess of music in Mesopotamia and ancient Syria, our ensemble is leading a revival in the tradition of female music-making by women in the Arab world. In the courts of Baghdad, Cordoba, and Medina women were highly trained in musical composition and performance, as well as in Read more…
In Summer 2017, in collaboration with Francesco Iannuzzelli, I put together a concert to compliment an exhibition of photography by Steve McCurry. The exhibition’s primary selling point was the famous photograph of Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula. Rather than directly entering the debate about media exploitation of the dispossessed, we decided Read more…
In December 2015, in collaboration with Stavroula Constanti, I organized three concerts as fund-raisers for ProActiva Open Arms, a Spanish NGO working to save lives in the Mediterranean. We were also happy to be selling the celebrated cookbook Soup for Syria in support of the same cause. The beautiful image of a Read more…
To complement the story of Ted Gorton’s book Renaissance Emir, I put together a programme to the Mosaic Rooms, London. I was joined by Stavroula Constanti, Ahmad AlSalhi, Nilufar Habibian and Interlink publisher Michel Moushabeck. Literature Event & Concert: Renaissance Emir
The London launch of the long-awaited English translation of Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s memoirs was held at London’s Mosaic Rooms in February 2014. Jawhariyyeh’s account of Palestine in the late Ottoman and British Mandate eras is an indispensible document for historians, and also provides fantastic insights into music-making of the period. It Read more…
In January 1996 I was selected to play at London’s Purcell Room in the Park Lane Group concert series for young artists. I combined short pieces by György Kurtág, with whom I had studied, with a newly-commissioned work by the Hungarian László Tihanyi, in whose Ensemble Intermodulation I had performed. The largest-scale Read more…
While living and studying in Budapest 1992-1995 I built up a repertoire of Hungarian music, much of it contemporary. I was happy to work with several composers – most intensively with Kurtag, but also with Laszlo Tihanyi (in his ensemble Intermodulation, and also on a solo piece he wrote for Read more…