South London’s World Heart Beat Music Gardens is cementing its credentials as a hidden gem venue in the capital, with its inaugural Silk Road Music Festival. Across three months, the programme will span genres across continents, cultures and centuries with sets from internationally acclaimed artists all celebrating the rich artistic traditions that flourished along the historic Silk Road.
The festival opens with a Sufi Qawwali Night – a traditional, devotional musical gathering – (Oct 3) performed by the Khan Brothers with Ustad Haji Ameer Khan. Other highlights include a fusion of Bengali song and London jazz with Sahana Bajpaie (Oct 4); Anatolian folk music performner Olcay Bayir (Oct 17), Chinese classical traditions with pianist Siqian Li and Guzheng player Kang Yang (Oct 30), American folk music duo Lucine Musaelian & The Khio Trio (Nov 6), South-Asian classical masters Ustad Kamal Sabri and Ustad Tari Khan (Nov 7), an intimate evening with Sudanese singer-songwriter Amira Kheir (Nov 19), a collaboration between jazz pianist Julian Joseph and tabla maestro Alok Verma (Nov 20), and a hybrid of Baroque opera and Persian poetry from Lydia Shariff (Dec 12).