North London Jazz Collective presents the Maydan Ensemble

We are excited to welcome back the North London Jazz Collective as they continue their partnership at Palestine House with the return of its Maydan Ensemble, a unique project that blends modern jazz and bebop with Arabic, Anatolian, and Persian folk music.

The Maydan Ensemble is an international group featuring rising-star vocalist Amena El Abd, Parham Bahadoran on reeds, Kourosh Kanani on guitar, Lorenzo Morabito on bass, and Robbie Ellison on drums. The group explores the intersection of jazz with a rich mosaic of West Asian musical traditions, approaching this fusion from two angles: reinterpretations of jazz compositions inspired by West Asia, and the ensemble’s own jazz-inflected arrangements of Arabic, Anatolian, and Persian folk tunes.

‘Maydan’ — meaning ‘town square’ or ‘public gathering place’ — originates in Farsi and is used across many languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Georgian, and Ukrainian. In adopting this name, the ensemble honours the communal roots of musical traditions and embraces the transformative, political potential of music as a shared, expressive act.

7:30pm Doors