Celebrating Sanctuary London kicks off Refugee Week

on Sunday 17 June with a free festival on the South Bank

Sunday, 17 June 2012, 2 - 7pm

Bernie Spain Gardens, Upper Ground, London SE1 (adjacent to Oxo Tower Wharf)

Free admission

It's a long and hard road that many refugee artists have to travel. But Tres B is not an artist for the faint of heart. He fled from murder and war in his native Congo, only to arrive in London and be greeted by poverty and homelessness. But with an amazing voice like his and a chance meeting with Prince William, he wasn't going to stay down for long. Sounding like Richie Havens singing Fleet Foxes tunes, Tres's music is the sound of a homeless African orphan's struggle to stay upbeat whilst living on the streets of London. Against all the odds, Tres B has made the main stage of the biggest and best Celebrating Sanctuary London yet.

With the eyes of the whole world on London this summer, Celebrating Sanctuary London, the free festival taking place on Sunday, 17 June, in Bernie Spain Gardens on London's South Bank, will be celebrating the art of refugee communities in the UK and the cultural fruits of sanctuary. Regularly attracting over 25,000 people, the annual multi-art form festival will kick off Refugee Week (18-24 June, http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk), a UK-wide programme of cultural and educational events which celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK and aims to encourage better understanding between communities.

Highlights this year include:

- Elysian Quartet (UK) and Maya Youssef (UK/Syria) - Contemporary classical British string quartet meets a virtuoso qanun player from Syria

- Wara (Cuba/Colombia/Congo/UK) - A stunning vision nu-skool pan-Latino brilliance, complete with titanic Congolese legend Franco's niece on lead vocals.

- José Hernando Noguera and Angelica Lopez (Colombia/UK) - A BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy collaboration of vallenato-style accordion and vocals

- Sam Lee + Friends (UK/Jewish) - The Nu-Folk sensation will be launching his debut album 'Ground Of Its Own' and collaborating with Algerian virtuosos Yazid Fentazi and Karim Dellali.

Plus our Words & Music (Bookslam meets Celebrating Sanctuary London) Yurt hosted by Michael Rosen and Jeremy Hardy featuring:

- Cerys Matthews, singer songwriter and BBC 6music broadcaster, collaborating with oud player Attab Haddad (UK/Iraq)

- Lemn Sissay, playwright and poet (the official 2012 Olympics Poet)

- Tanya Auclair (UK/Rwanda), the oh-so-soulful one woman band

- Reem Kelani (Palestine) bringing the music of Tahrir Square to the South Bank

And that's not all. Celebrating Sanctuary London is also presenting two more amazing free events during Refugee Week: Casablanca at the Victoria & Albert Museum on Friday, 22 June, and Round The Bloc at Rich Mix on Saturday, 23 June. See below for links.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CelebratingSanctuaryLondon

Twitter: @cslondonfest or @RefugeeWeek

http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/In-Your-Area/London/Celebrating-Sanctuary

Full programme and running order: http://wtrns.fr/IP5RcQYa38eP5Mk (36KB)

Images to download: http://wtrns.fr/YAY9faIGTxvZCh (10MB)

- Celebrating Sanctuary London + Refugee Week logos

- Tres B

- Lemn Sissay

- Tanya Auclair

- Jose Hernando Noguera 

- Elysian Quartet

- Maya

- Attab Haddad

- Reem Kelani (credit: Reem Kelani in concert, World Music Shanghai. Photograph courtesy of Nono Hu, May 2011)

More images available on request.

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

1. Celebrating Sanctuary London curates events for Refugee Week which celebrate the art of refugee communities in the UK. Refugee Week (18-24 June 2012) is a UK-wide programme of cultural and educational events which focuses on the contribution of refugees to the UK, and aims to encourage better understanding between communities. For more information or to get involved visit http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/ and http://www.simpleacts.org.uk 

2. Celebrating Sanctuary London is supported by the Arts Council England/ The National Lottery with a small additional amount of funding from The Mayor of London. It is programmed by curators and broadcasters Rita Ray (BBC World Service) and Max Reinhardt (BBC Radio 3 Late Junction) and creative producer Almir Koldzic (UK Refugee Week/Platforma). Celebrating Sanctuary London's media partners include fRoots Magazine and Radio SOAS and we’d like to record our grateful thanks to BBC Radio 3 for all their assistance. Celebrating Sanctuary London on the South Bank on 17 June 2012 is brought to you in association with the Coin Street festival.

3. The other two free events for Refugee Week organised by Celebrating Sanctuary are Casablanca at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL, http://www.vam.ac.uk/ on Friday, 22 June 2012, 6 - 10pm, and Round The Bloc at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA, http://www.richmix.org.uk on Saturday, 23 June.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CelebratingSanctuaryLondon
Twitter: @cslondonfest @RefugeeWeek
www.refugeeweek.org.uk/In-Your-Area/London/Celebrating-Sanctuary