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.’

Flotsam Sessions Residency

Are you passionate about world and roots music? Live in London? Do you want to spend 6 days sharing, learning and performing music from around the globe with an excellent group of musicians?

Sign up here for more information:
https://forms.gle/q6McpPK4KybKa5qY8

Flotsam Sessions will be running a roots and world music residency in Catford, South London, from Tuesday 8th March - Sunday 13th March. We will be learning songs and tunes from each other, arranging them, and performing all together as the Flotsam Orchestra. With daily workshops and rehearsals, and concerts on the Saturday and Sunday evening.

*** Please note that this is not an 'overnight' residency, and no accommodation is provided.

Any questions, send us an email to flotsamsessions@gmail.com

Flotsam Sessions in Catford Mews!

Excited to announce our new collaboration with Catford Mews in Lewisham. After a wonderful workshop and jam session in July, learning a Colombian song with Jenny Parra, and participants sharing music from all across the world, Flotsam Sessions will be running in Catford Mews every second Thursday of the month from September 2021.

Our sessions are free and open to all members of the community, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and experiences to share and learn music together, to build friendship and have a lovely time! We learn songs from different cultures of the world, in peer-to-peer workshops, jam sessions and song sharings. 🌻🍁

DO YOU WANT TO JOIN US?

Next Flotsam Session is on Thursday 9th Sep, 7 - 10pm, in Catford Mews

Flotsam Sessions at Refugee Week 2021

Video by Salah Eddine Zhouri.

We loved being part of this year's Refugee Week, hosting an open mic night in Matchstick Piehouse in Deptford, a song workshop with Michael Ekeghasi sharing the Yoruba song L'abe igi orombo, and performing live in Beckenham Place Mansion! So many lovely people, art, music, food, culture and community!
Refugee Week is an annual UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Huge thanks to Create Without Borders for organising the events around Lewisham this year.

🌼 SPRING NEWS 🌼

Spring is here and live music is in sight 😍. We have some exciting plans to share with you soon!

For now, dates to put in your diary:
Song sharing this Sunday 2 May, on ZOOM (running every other Sunday)
Flotsam workshop and gig 19th June (Details TBA).

Opportunities: our friends, Create Without Borders, are looking for volunteers and promotions manager for events running over Refugee Week 15-19 June this Summer. They are also commissioning artists from refugee backgrounds to be part of the events, which will take place in Lewisham, London. Is this you?

Application links below:

Volunteers

Creative Commission Call Out

Promotions manager

International Women's Day with Flotsam Sessions & Sounds for Solidarity 💞♀️

Join our International Women’s Day celebration, an evening of music, singing and dancing with Flotsam Sessions and Sounds for Solidarity! Tuesday 9th March, 7-9 pm GMT. Free and open to all (women).

The session will take place on Zoom via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84904909952

Inviting all the wonderful women to join us for an evening of music and dance from all corners of the world, heart and mind. We invite you to share something you feel close to, be it a song, a poem, an instrumental tune, a dance… or simply just come and enjoy the music and community!

🌊 Flotsam Sessions: Song Sharing evenings 🌊

Our Song Sharing evenings are running every other Sunday at 7 - 9 pm (GMT) on Zoom, bringing together musicians from all over the world. We share songs, stories, laughter, friendship and warmth. Music brings hope, resilience and joy, which is so important throughout the Covid crises and beyond. Our Song Sharing events are free and open to all, would you like to make new friends, share a song, or just sit back and listen.

The next Song Sharing is this week. Come and join us! 🌍

Do you want to join the Flotsam community? We have a group on Facebook “Flotsam Sessions: Digital Musical Journeys” where we live stream all song workshops and song sharing sessions directly from Zoom. A space to connect with other music-lovers, show support, make friends, share music, thoughts and ideas!

Happy New Year!

🎊 HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM FLOTSAM SESSIONS! 🎊

2020 didn’t turn out quite like we expected, but we're pleased that we managed to keep contact with wonderful musicians across the globe, hold song sharings and workshops and even host our own, online, Flotsam Festival! We're also delighted to announce that from the 1st January 2021, we're officially a Community Interest Company, another step forward on our journey!

Wishing you all much love, warmth and music wherever you are.
Here’s to brighter times in 2021! ❤️

x M & M

✨ Flotsam Sessions: Lockdown Lights ✨

Delighted to give you a series of videos featuring songs and tunes from the worldwide Flotsam Community, recorded during Lockdown 2020. Our first video is of the amazing Lewis, a.k.a Stagg, playing P Stands For Paddy, an Irish trad song. 😍 Enjoy!

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more videos!