Christmas is over. The decorations are down, the playing cards (fewer in quantity once more this 12 months) are within the recycling and a few London Christmas bushes are nonetheless beached on avenue corners like misshapen whales, helpless and misplaced. But on a chilly and icy early January evening, a bunch of singers and musicians stored the magic and thriller of the Christmas spirit alive for just a bit longer.
Within the church of St Mary Magdalene in Paddington, the Epiphany, each the arrival of the magi and the baptism of Christ and his first revelation to mankind, was celebrated because the assembly level of japanese and western Christian custom by means of a sequence of performances by artists from the center japanese diaspora.
The Arab Christmas by Candlelight occasion was organised by Grand Junction, a multi-arts venue and group hub primarily based within the gorgeous Grade 1 listed Neo-Gothic church, and led by its artistic and group director, Lucy Foster.
The church was constructed within the 1860s and 1870s by the good Victorian architect G. E. Road, who produced a masterwork combining structure, sculpture, stained glass, and fairly presumably probably the most exceptional painted ceiling in an English parish church.
Foster’s mission is to programme work which resonates culturally with native folks, in addition to wider London audiences, and Grand Junction has simply launched a brand new Nationwide Lottery Heritage Funded venture known as You Are Right here, which goals to attach folks and locations by celebrating the varied historical past of the local people and the heritage of the Victorian constructing.
Over a few years they’ve developed a deep, collaborative relationship with Arts Canteen, an organisation that empowers artists from the Arab world and past to inform their very own tales and take centre stage. It organises inventive programmes that tackle the pressing social and environmental problems with our occasions.
That is the second 12 months operating they’ve introduced collectively artists and musicians to carry out an Arab Christmas. For Arts Canteen founder and managing director Aser el Saqqa, who opened the occasion, the evening marked a celebration of the human voice, with track being a timeless medium of celebration throughout cultures, religions and societies.
As an alternative of dividing us, such cultural exchanges, so commonplace London however typically unremarked on, are the bridge to attach all of us collectively in peace and solidarity.
Because the lights dimmed and a hush fell on the packed viewers a single, lit candle was introduced down the nave by Najib Coutya performing in a sonorous voice a liturgical Christmas chant within the Greek orthodox custom.
Coutya’s father was a choirmaster and singer of Byzantine and Arabic Church music, famend throughout the Center East. He defined how the phrase maqam describes each the melodic scales utilized in conventional Arabic music however can also be a phrase for place, location or place.
And so started a musical journey throughout Egypt and the Levant and thru time, with Laila Samy’s Coptic hymn reaching again to the reign of Queen Zanobia when Christianity first reached the traditional Syrian caravan metropolis of Palmyra within the second century CE.
Sura, a Lebanese artist and singer born in Beirut however now working in London, started her efficiency with an Arabic rendition of Silent Night time accompanied by her brother enjoying the Oud. This lay down a stupendous, hauntingly fragile accompaniment to the track, with Sura’s achingly lovely voice rising excessive into the star-spangled vault.
However ideas and prayers for these affected by battle, displacement and homelessness have been integral to the performances and heightened the engagement with the viewers. Sura mirrored on the cycles of violence which have affected Southern Lebanon since 1948 with every technology of her maternal line bearing the ache and struggling of dislocation and loss.
However her closing track was a track about religion, not essentially non secular religion however religion that there’s a higher future on the market for all peoples, and that cycles of violence can and might be damaged. For if we do not need religion, what do now we have?
The ultimate set of songs was carried out by Cambridge Takht and the Pomegranates. Established in 2021, the group brings collectively a singular mix of conventional and folkloric Arabic music with up to date influences.
Starting life in a entrance room to seize a homespun really feel to creating and having fun with music, the group carried out songs from Syria, Armenia and from the Coptic custom. And in celebration of their London debut the viewers have been invited to hitch in Laylit A’eed (Christmas Eve) as a poignant ship off.
Subsequent up for Grand Junction is a Burns Night time Ceilidh after which on 13 February they host native musicians from the Arab world becoming a member of collectively for Nagham Alsharq: The Melody of the East. And if you happen to don’t wish to miss the following Arab Christmas by Candlelight, a bit whisper instructed me it’s being pencilled in for 7 January 2026, so get the diaries prepared!
Prime picture from Grand Junction, center picture of Sura and accompanist Nahi by Ollie Denton.
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