Performances
Blending ambient, electronic, experimental and world-music traditions, Living Streams Connect is a bold and powerful live performance bringing together award-winning musicians and talented migrants.
The project turns the sounds and musicality of water into live music. Rivers and migration are at the heart of the work, celebrated as sources of life, movement and connection, and as powerful symbols of journeys between people, cultures and places.
Led by composer Isa Suarez on keyboards and voice, the project features the Living Streams Ensemble: Arowah on bass and voice, Beibei Wang on percussion, Mercedes Maresca on flute, and Rihab Azar on oud.
Good Hotel, Royal Victoria Dock
Western Gateway, London E16 1FA
Date: Saturday 25 July
Time: 8:30pm
Tickets: Free entry and no booking required
The final Living Streams Connect performance takes place at Good Hotel following Certain Blacks’ Ensemble Festival, a free outdoor weekend of contemporary performance. Staged in the floating Good Hotel, at Royal Victoria Dock, a socially responsible business committed to reinvesting into community and social causes. This location amplifies how London was shaped by water, migration and the importance of environmental justice.
The Living Streams Connect compositions and performances have been developed through improvisation, co-creation and listening sessions with talented migrants and The Living Streams Ensemble, alongside composer Isa Suarez’s recordings of rivers from around the world and her music work in the studio.
Past performances
Handel Hendrix House
25 Brook St, London W1K 4HB
Date: Saturday 20 June
Time: Doors open 7pm, performance start 7:30pm
Tickets: book here (pay what you can)
Launching during Refugee Week, the opening performance takes place at the home of George Frideric Handel and Jimi Hendrix, two migrant musicians. This venue is a reminder of how often Britain’s cultural life has been shaped and enriched by people who came from elsewhere. Living Streams Connect continues this conversation by bringing refugees, asylum seekers and migrant musicians together to create a musical experience among the museum’s collections, as it opens its new exhibition of Hendrix memorabilia to the public. Special guest: Nia Tilli, bass.
St John’s Waterloo
Waterloo Rd, London SE1 8TY
Date: Friday 10 July
Time: 7:30pm
Tickets: Book here (£3 to £5)
As part of the Waterloo Festival, Living Streams Connect comes to St John’s Waterloo, a place with a long history of music, art and collaboration. The church is by the river Thames and home to murals by German Jewish refugee artist Hans Feibusch, and it continues to bring artists and local people together through the arts. The performance also sits within the festival’s theme, “Now I make a leaf of voices”… a title borrowed from Walt Whitman that feels especially apt for a work shaped by water, music and shared creativity.
InspiralLondon, Peckham Rye Park
Straker’s Rd, Peckham Rye, London SE15 3UA
Date: Saturday 11 July
Time: 4:00pm (Meet at Peckham Rye Cafe for walk departure)
Tickets: book here (suggested donation: £5 – £10)
Hosted by InspiralLondon, this is a musical walk event tracing the river Peck through Peckham Rye Park. Led by local artist Rachel Gomme, it celebrates rivers as places of sanctuary, healing and peaceful co-existence. The performance invites audiences to discover the hidden life of the Peck and share in watersong.