Â鶹Éç

London is home to people from just about every country on the planet, and (not surprisingly) they bring their music with them. Some come here specifically because of London’s rich musical heritage, its amazing musicians in all genres, its music schools and performance venues, not to mention the studios and record companies.

Amazing things can happen when musicians from different backgrounds get together, and one of our featured groups, Paprika, combines outstanding players from Romania and Serbia – two nationalities who don’t usually get together. The six members met in London.

Ganga Thapa is using London as a base from which to tell the world about Nepalese music. He came to London from Kathmandu seven years ago and his band, Namlo, is made up of musicians from several different countries.

Another of our London International bands, Afrik Bawantu, is led by Afla Sackey from Ghana. His sound is distinctly West African, but it also has a cosmopolitan feel, drawing on London’s underground club scene.

Katy Carr sounds like a name that could only have come from Britain, but in fact Katy has Polish roots and that is what inspires her musically. She writes what sound like traditional Polish folk songs but they have a distinctly contemporary twist.

Kuljit Bhamra is a tabla player coming out of the Punjabi community in London’s Southall district, and something of a British institution, but his collaboration with Somali musicians is very recent. For Global Beats he performs with Somali oud player Said Hussein, singer Farxiya Fiska and dhol drummer Bobby Panesar – it’s a fusion between musicians from two of London’s largest ethnic groups which, says Kuljit, would only have happened here.

From Iran, we have Mehdi Ganjvar playing the santur - a stringed instrument of the hammered dulcimer family - accompanied by singer Samin Heydari. They'll also be telling Rita Ray about what it's like to make music and negotiate censorship in Iran.

Our final act is a brand new experimental outfit with roots in jazz and classical music. NBOC, New Born Outcry, brings together a British trombonist with Afro-Caribbean roots and a Canadian trumpet player, who combine virtuoso live brass with cutting edge electronica.

[Photo: Courtney Brown (left) and Jay Phelps of NBOC. Credit: Â鶹Éç]