Yamen Mekdad is a music researcher, collector, DJ and radio host based in London. His interests in field recording, archiving, radio and grassroots organising have led him to found Sawt of the Earth and Makkam, two London-based collectives. He is a frequent contributor to a number of radio stations, including Root Radio and Balamii Radio, and was a producer of DanDana podcasts on SOAS Radio. Yamen is currently co-producer/curator of the Syrian Cassette Archives, a web based platform that preserves the Syrian cassette era as well as curating and producing SACF’s (Syrian Arts and Culture Festival) music programme. Yamen has performed and collaborated with various artists/art institutions both in the UK and internationally.

Sarah El Miniawy runs Simsara Music PR & Management, working closely with an intimate roster of artists and organisations at the forefront of independent music in the Arab world, including Nadah El Shazly, Maurice Louca, Nancy Mounir, Maryam Saleh and Kamilya Jubran. She developed her PR experience working for the Barbican Centre for eight years whilst pursuing a master’s degree in music and anthropology at SOAS. Born in Algiers to an Algerian mother and an Egyptian father, she was raised between the two countries before moving to London in 2005. Sarah is currently based between Cairo and London, producing events, residencies & collaborations alongside managing the agency and its roster.

Hazem Jamjoum is curator of the British Library’s early twentieth century audio recordings of relevance to Arab and Gulf History. His work aims at digitizing, cataloguing and contextualizing this part of Arab communities’ audio heritage. He has also co-lead a project aimed at identifying similar at-risk audiovisual collections in the region with the longer term aim of fostering such preservation and curatorial work on a wider scale. His doctoral research in history at NYU traces the connections between the production of “Arabic music” as a concept and a commodity, and the implications of these production processes on supra-state collective identifications, pan-Arabism in particular.

Omran Zain studied Arabic classical singing at the Higher Institute for Music in Damascus, Syria, where he had the opportunity to study under the tutelage of skilled specialists. Omran has skillfully mastered fusing his specialization in classical singing with contemporary jazz. As a member of the National Syrian Orchestra, he performed at the Damascus Opera House. He also had the opportunity to work with the English band, Gorillaz. In 2016, Omran embarked on a successful European tour, including the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany and Turkey, where he performed at renowned festivals such as Glastonbury and Roskilde. In 2017, he performed at WOMAD Festival in the UK. In 2018, he performed at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to his ongoing compositions of original music, Omran’s forthcoming project sees him converting various traditional Arabic works into modern jazz pieces that incorporate elements of expressive dance and performance.

Kareem Samara is a musician, composer, and organizer from London. His practice investigates the intersections of struggles and combines traditional Arabic instruments with electronics to create a unique soundscape of protest. He is a serial collaborator (Smoked Poets, Ryan Harvey) and composes for various theatres in and around the UK.

Walid Zedo is a percussionist who studied both western and Arab classical music, graduating from the higher institute of music in Damascus. He was a member of the Syria National Orchestra, the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music, the Arab Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, among several others. He has performed in prestigious opera houses around the world as well as numerous concerts in Germany, the United Kingdom, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon and many more.

Manon Schwich Working as a media archivist for a decade in various contexts – both institutional and under the radar – Manon is an artist and researcher whose multidisciplinary, collaborative practice engages with geo-poetics, genders, memory and the way we take up space. In an attempt to creatively counteract reductive and biased ways in which histories are being told, she inventories libraries and archive collections, researches politics of representation, produces audio-visual events & experiments with images and sounds through an anti-colonial, feminist lens.