Flotsam Sessions May Bank Holiday Residency!

Exciting news! We're delighted to announce we'll be holding a Flotsam Sessions mini-residency!

Flotsam Sessions will be running a roots and world music residency in Stratford, East London, from Saturday 4th May - Monday 6th May, with a big concert and celebration at Jago in Dalston on Monday 6th May. We will be learning songs and tunes from each other, rehearsing and arranging them, and then performing all together as the Flotsam Orchestra. 

The Flotsam Orchestra Has a Brand New Rehearsal Space!

Happy New Year!

We're delighted to be starting our Flotsam new year in a brand new rehearsal space, partnering with the excellent Newham Music, in their home in Stratford Westfield.

We're looking for all levels of musicians to join our multi-level ensemble with lots of exciting gig & performance opportunities coming up. ...A perfect opportunity to develop your playing, expand your repertoire and meet a great group of friendly and talented musicians :)

The Flotsam Orchestra is a global music ensemble, playing exciting arrangements of traditional songs & tunes that come directly from our community and around the world. Each week we will learn a new song or tune by ear, & rehearse and arrange to create fantastic performances!

Want to join us? Got a song you'd like to share with the group? Come along to our first workshop on Monday 15th January, 6pm, or send us an email at flotsamsessions@gmail.com, or message over our socials: 
www.instagram.com/flotsamsessions
www.facebook.com/flotsamsessions

Crossing Borders: Sharing Songs

Our summer was certainly busy! In August Flotsam Sessions spent a magical week in Oostende, Belgium with our European sister organisations, Klein Verhaal (BE), Orchestre Partout (NE) and Muziek Mozaiek (BE). The residency, 'Crossing Borders: Sharing Songs', was ten days of exchanging songs,cultures, games, silliness, tunes, memories and making new music. The residency culminated in two wonderful concerts - one even performed in the pouring rain!

35 musicians • 30 nationalities • 4 organisations • 14 new music pieces

Crossing Borders: Sharing Songs has been an incredible journey over the last two years, with this unforgettable residency finale last week. An Erasmus+ funded project with @klein_verhaal @orchestrepartout @muziekmozaiek.folk.jazz

Photos by @sammyvancauteren

☆ Starting the new year Flotsam Style ☆

Flotsam Sessions at Jamboree

Our favourite way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Playing music, dancing and laughing with new and old friends. Flotsam Sessions at the Jamboree happens every 3rd Saturday of the month 1 - 5 pm. Bringing together Londoners from diverse backgrounds, to jam, and learn a song together in a free workshop, always with a different guest musician, invited to share a song from their tradition. In 2023, we’ve already had the joy to learn a Kurdish song with Newroz Oremari, and a Gaelic folk song with Lewis Kane (a.k.a STAGG), and more is to come!

Our Jamboree Sessions always start with an open song workshop, followed by an acoustic jam session, welcoming any instruments, levels of musicianship, cultures, voices, rhythms and dances. With roots, folk and trad music from all corners of the world, heart and mind, Flotsam Sessions is an open space to share, express, connect and collaborate through music, and is open and welcome to all!

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Flotsam Live at Poster

On the 13 of February 2023 we had our second concert at Poster in Stoke Newington, with Live music from the Flotsam Orchestra and some amazing Solo performances from our talented orchestra members. Flotsam concerts at Poster happens every third month, creating a magic evening of music, dance and community. check our events calander for upcoming dates.

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Flotsam Orchestra - Rehearsals at Poster

The Flotsam Orchestra are meeting weekly at Poster in Dalston, to share, rehearse and arrange songs and tunes from across the world. The Flotsam Orchestra is a unique transglobal world-music collaboration; a collective of Londoners from across the globe playing exciting roots, folk and traditional music, with regular gigs at some of London's top venues.

All (acoustic) instruments welcome! Contact us for more details.

Flotsam Orchestra Live @ Poster

Join us for an evening of live music from around the world,
Poster in Stoke Newington, Monday 28 Nov 7 - 10 pm.

Live music from the Flotsam Orchestra.
solo performances from talented orchestra members.

"The Flotsam Orchestra is a unique music collaboration, bringing together talented musicians, spanning diverse backgrounds and cultures. United by a vision to play music that transcends boundaries, their unique sound creates an uplifting and truly spellbinding celebration of unity and diversity."

"One of London's most inspirational groups" - Resonance FM

Expect music and dances from Colombia, Sweden, Kurdistan, India, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Finland, Ireland, West Africa and much more!

There will be delicious empanadas and drinks served in the bar.

Free/Donations

See you there!

Flotsam Orchestra at Refugee Week 2022

Check out this video of Flotsam Orchestra performing at Horniman Museum and Gardens during Lewisham Refugee Week this summer!

18 musicians, 15 nationalities, 10 songs, languages and musical traditions #ThePowerOfMusic

It was a wonderful day with art, culture, music, theatre, dance, talks, storytelling and much more, celebrating the invaluable contributions, creativity and knowledge refugees, asylum seekers and migrants bring to our community.

Video by Adrian Cantor

Flotsam Sessions at Jamboree!

New place, new day, same Flotsam Sessions!

We have found a new and lovely home for our monthly Flotsam Sessions in the bohemian folk venue Jamboree, located on a cobblestone backstreet only a couple of minutes walk from Kings Cross station.

Jamboree is a venue famous across London for its diversity of music and people, with live jazz, folk, blues and much more. Every third Saturday of the month, Flotsam Sessions will host an open jam session and song workshop at Jamboree, for a cozy afternoon of music from across the world.

We start with a song learning workshop at 1 pm, featuring songs from all around the globe, followed by an acoustic jam, playing folk, trad and roots music from across the world. All levels, instruments, voices, rhythms, cultures and backgrounds welcome. Free entrance.

Flotsam Sessions Jamboree
Time: 1 pm - 5 pm
Date: Every third Saturday of the month.
Next Session: 15 October
Location: Jamboree, Kings Cross
5 minute walk from Kings Cross St Pancras

See you there!

Photos by Mark O’Brien

Music Leader Training Day

A couple of weeks ago we went to Oxford and hosted a Music Leader training day together with Music in Tandem. Here's a beautiful Indian Holi song that we learnt from the wonderful @Ianthe Marl Isle - to give you a reminder of the joy of making music together!

Flotsam Sessions Residency

We made it! 😍 Flotsam Sessions Residency 2022 😍

6 Days
2 Concerts
1 Open Workshop
14 Songs/Tunes
30 Incredible Musicians

For six intense and wonderful days, Flotsam Sessions brought together 30 outstanding musicians, Londoners with roots in 16 countries (and 5 continents!) from across the globe. They shared, learnt, arranged and rehearsed songs together, with a crazy range of instruments, voices and musical backgrounds. They performed two incredible gigs, in Catford’s Ninth Life, and a sold out show at The Jago in Dalston, with special guests The Scorpios. And it was fantastic!

Photos by Gültekin Kaya. The Flotsam Residency performing at The Jago 13 March 2022.

Special thanks to Ninth Life for hosting the residency in their beautiful space!

Kurdish Music & Dance Event

Flotsam Sessions, Govend London & Suna Alan welcome you to an afternoon of music and dance workshops in Poplar Union, to learn the traditional Kurdish rhythm and lyrics, followed by an evening of live music and dance.

2 - 5 pm: Kurdish Music and singing Workshop with Suna Alan & Flotsam Sessions
4 - 6 pm: Kurdish Dance Workshop with Govend London.
7 - 11 pm: Dance and Live Music from Suna Alan & band, and the Flotsam Orchestra.

The evening will be a celebration of Kurdish dance & music, giving you a chance to perform what you’ve learnt in the workshops, and join in on social dances from all over the world. You can join at any part of the day or evening that you like. Register for free workshops and/or Live music event tickets £5 HERE.

All levels, ages and backgrounds are welcome with no experience necessary!

All profits go to support The Kurdish Red Moon, a humanitarian non-profit organisation helping people in need.

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We are super excited to collaborate with the incredible singer and songwriter Suna Alan. Read more about her life below, and check out her work here: www.sunaalan.net  & https://www.youtube.com/sunaalan12 

‘Suna Alan is a Kurdish/Alevi singer and journalist based in London. She was born in the mountainous province of Çewlik (Bingol), an ancient Kurdish and Armenian province. Her family moved to Smyrna (Izmir) in her early childhood which meant that much of her formative years were spent surrounded by traditional Kurdish dengbêj (*bard) music and Kurdish-Alevi laments within a rich cosmopolitan cultural environment. Although her main focus remains Kurdish folk songs from the four regions of Kurdistan namely Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, her repertoire also includes Armenian, Greek, Sephardic, Arabic and Turkish songs. She has involved in a variety of causes, including human and women's rights and the environment.’