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Arab Christmas by Candlelight

Wed 7 January, 20:00
£22 + bf

After two sold out evenings, we are delighted to see the return of Arab Christmas at Grand Junction!

Join us for a rare opportunity to experience the atmosphere of Christmas in the Arab world as the Grand Junction gently lit by candles. You will hear Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, and Byzantine chants, harking back to the time of Queen Zanubia’s Palmyra in the second century CE.

Line-up includes Najib Coutya, Egyptian multi-instrumentalist Mina Salama, Egyptian singer-songwriter Hayat Selim, British-Palestinian writer Selma Dabbagh, Irish-Palestinian writer Hannah Khalil, Egyptian Oud player Tarek Elazhary, Yara Sharif, and Melkite Greek Catholic priest Rev Dr Abouzayd.

As part of this year’s Arab Christmas, we are profiling and raising funds for the charity The Hanoon Foundation, who are dedicated to advancing medical education in Palestine. We invite you to donate ahead of the event by clicking here. We will also be collecting money for Hanoon Foundation on the night.

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The evening is presented by Arts Canteen in collaboration with Grand Junction.

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Mina Mikhael Salama

An accomplished multi-instrumentalist and music educator from Alexandria, Egypt. From 2004 to 2012, Mina was a principal player of nay, piano, and keyboard at the Egyptian Opera House, where he also served as Assistant Maestro and music arranger. He has directed and coached various choirs and managed Ava Takla Sound Studios as a principal sound engineer. His contributions include composing music for Coptic Churches and participating in notable international music festivals.

Mina has performed widely across the UK and beyond, including at prestigious events like the Edinburgh Festival and Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Manchester International Music Festival and Womad. He played a significant role in the music score recording for Disney’s Aladdin in 2017 and was featured in the BBC TV program Civilisations.

Hayat Selim

A singer, songwriter, and composer whose work blends distinctive traditional vocals with classical cinematic music and expansive electronic soundscapes. Originally from Egypt, she moved to the UK in 2017 on a scholarship to study Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music, graduating in 2019. Hayat has performed on titles such as Age of Empires IV, Harry Potter: Magic Awakened, and most recently Star Trek: Khan. Her original song Mirage was nominated for Best Song at the Jerry Goldsmith Awards in 2019.
Hayat has written music for media installations at the Grand Egyptian Museum, including the ancient Egyptian lullaby Priestess of Hathor, and co-composed the music for the Disney+ show Habibi Baba Boom. In 2023, she was the Middle Eastern soloist in Sir Karl Jenkins’ Stabat Mater, and in 2024 she opened for the Lebanese band Bedouin Burger in London.
In recent years, Hayat has expanded her repertoire to include more music from her heritage, revisiting Arabic folk songs from Egypt and the Levant. Her debut single as Ankhaya, Tirara Ya Beirut, combines Middle Eastern music with EDM and neoclassical elements.

Tarek Elazhary

Tarek weaves the ancient sounds of Arabic music with a modern spirit, creating emotive, universal soundscapes where tradition meets experimentation. His artistry has graced prestigious stages at festivals including Womad, OneBeat, Tarantella Power, Shambala, and MiddleBeast. A graduate of the legendary Arabic Oud House where he studied under master Nasser Shamma, Tarek founded the innovative musical project Dokkan in 2016, blending Egyptian and Arabic musical heritage with contemporary instrumentation.

His recent collaboration with British musician Tamsin Elliott resulted in the critically acclaimed album “So Far We Have Come,” exploring connections between Egyptian and English folk traditions. Join us for this unique musical experience as Tarek brings his extraordinary talent to our show.

Hannah Khalil

Hannah Khalil is Writer in Residence, Bristol Old Vic. Previously she was Resident Writer at Shakespeare’s Globe, work there includes Hakawatis andThe Fir Tree. My English Persian Kitchen sold out at the Edinburgh Festival and Soho theatre in 2024, it toured in autumn 2025. A Museum in Baghdad  marked the first play by an Arab woman on a main stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Hannah is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Selma Dabbagh

A British-Palestinian writer and lawyer. Her debut novel Out of It was listed as a best book on Israel/Palestine by the Guardian in 2024. Her fiction includes short stories, radio plays and productions for stage and screen, including the Oscar shortlisted Palestine 36. She is the editor of We Wrote In Symbols; Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers (Saqi, 2021). She writes a regular blog for the London Review of Books on Palestine / Gaza. Her reviews and articles have been published by Saqi, the Guardian, the Observer, PORT, INQUE, Granta, and the New York Review of Books.

Yara Sharif

A Palestinian architect and academic whose work explores design as a tool for community empowerment and for rethinking the scarred landscapes of Palestine. She reimagines architecture as a practice that challenges colonial fragmentation and erasure. Shaped by a life navigating between her family in Gaza and the West Bank, Sharif uses her personal diaries to narrate the landscape. Moving between the urban and the rural, the intimate becomes very political: writing becomes a way of documenting the landscape, a quiet act of resistance, and a tool for healing and  mental liberation that transcends imposed physical boundaries.

This event marks the first time Sharif shares excerpts from her personal diaries in a public setting.

Najib Coutya

Najib Coutya will perform liturgical Christmas chants from the Greek Orthodox tradition, in the style of Arabic maqam and improvisation. They will also sing non-liturgical, religious Christmas hymns, accompanied by Oud. Singer and oud player Najib was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, where he lived until moving to London in 1991. He had a very musical upbringing as his father was a choirmaster and singer of Byzantine and Arabic Church music, renowned across the Middle East.

Najib is the co-founder of Ichos Ensemble. This group has a Turkish violinist, a Greek singer, and Najib, who plays the oud and sings. They play a mixture of Turkish and Greek songs, Greek rebetiko music and Arabic and Ottoman classical music. He also collaborates with Egyptian classical musicians in the maqam tradition, often playing material by legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthumm.

Dr Rev Shafiq Abouzayd

The senior Melkite Greek Catholic priest in Britain, has been a priest at the Maronite Church since 1987. Of joint Lebanese and British nationality, Rev Dr Abouzayd studied Aramaic-Syriac and Arabic at the monastery of the Lebanese Maronite Missionaries in Jounieh and is currently the director for the Aram Centre for Syro Mespotoamian Studies at Oxford University.

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Arts Canteen

Established in 2010, we curate and produce events, exhibitions and festivals that support emerging, mid-career and established artists from the Arab world and surrounding regions, bringing their work to new audiences in the UK and beyond. We now have an international reputation for excellence and innovation in our work.

The Hanoon Foundation

The Hanoon Foundation (THF), formerly known as FQMS, is a British-registered charity founded in 1995 and registered in 1997 (Charity reference number 1063835), dedicated to advancing medical education in Palestine. The Foundation played a key role in the establishment of the first medical school in Palestine, Al-Quds Medical School.

THF works in partnership with four medical schools in Palestine and has supported thousands of students — both directly, through scholarships, bursaries, and training support, and indirectly, by providing training equipment and supporting visiting trainers. Trusted in both Palestine and the UK, THF focuses exclusively on building sustainable medical capacity through education and long-term development.

For more information, please visit our website: www.hanoon.org
Instagram: @fqmspalestine | @hanoonpalestine

Click here to watch a video about The Hanoon Foundation’s work

Click here to Donate

PLEASE NOTE: Grand Junction is based in St Mary Magdalene’s church, and while it is a stunning grade 1 listed neo-Gothic building, during the winter months it can get cold, so we recommend wearing layers.

Date: 7 January 2026

Start Time: 20:00

Doors: 19:00

Bar:  Open from 19:00. We serve a selection of craft beer, wine, soft drinks and snacks.

Length: approx. 2 hours

Tickets: £22 + bf

We recommend pre-booking tickets to guarantee entry. Booking on the door will result in an additional fee of £1.

Venue: Grand Junction at St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Rowington Close, London W2 5TF

Closest Stations: Royal Oak (Circle and Hammersmith & City line) 0.3 miles

Warwick Avenue (Bakerloo line) 0.4 miles

Paddington Station (National Rail services and Circle, District, Bakerloo, Hammersmith & City line) 0.9 miles