Arts Canteen Presents Amira Kheir

Hailed as the ‘Diva of the Sudanese desert’ (Journal du Mali) Sudanese-Italian singer Amira Kheir has been enchanting audiences around the world with a sound inspired by traditional music from her homeland Sudan and blended with elements of Jazz, Soul, East and West African as well as Middle Eastern music. The result is a unique amalgamation of arrangements and instrumentation that give tasters of Sudan’s rich musical and cultural heritage whilst being reflective of the artist’s Afrocentric and Jazz musical influences.

Following the relsease of her critically acclaimed debut album ‘View From Somewhere’ (2011 Contro Cultura/ Sterns African Music) she has been steadily rising in the World music and Jazz circuits appearing on line and on air including in BBC 3's ‘World on 3', BBC World Service Network Africa, BBC Arabic and BBC Persia. She has performed internationally on some of the world’s biggest stages from the London Jazz Festival to the Festival Au Desert in Mali.

As a young singer, musician and composer now residing in London, Amira draws from her own multicultural background to create music that explores themes of home, belonging and transcendental spirituality. Her music is evocative of Northern Sudan’s desert landscape and celebrative of its ancient culture and multitude realities, but rooted in a desire to break all the boundaries used to keep people divided. It is anchored in a compelling call to come together irrespectively of our backgrounds to share our single human journey. Within Amira’s music is a universal message of peace, love and unity and global call to rise up and confront oppression, corruption and injustice. This young artist is rapidly becoming one of the new voices in the African renaissance.

“Bold and poetic… beautiful and fearless” - Songlines

Artists / Speakers: Amira Kheir