Thank you for visiting my website!
I’m an improviser, community musician, and creative researcher based in London, UK.
My research interests are around music and health, and I work as a researcher at the music therapy charity Nordoff & Robbins. I am also a Research Resident at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where I’m working on a participatory community music project about Muslim experiences of sound, music and healing. I love working with creative and participatory research methods that involve art, music and word-craft, and offer participants inclusive ways of involvement.
Before this, I completed my PhD in Music at Cambridge University in 2022, supported by an AHRC studentship. My project was about what historical improvisation practices can tell us about cultural, social, and political exchanges between early modern England and Ottoman Turkey, Syria and Palestine. I also completed a research project about the cultural politics of the historical performance movement, and continue to be interested in this topic.
I’m also a recorder player and vocalist, and the work closest to my heart is improvisation-based. I was a founding member of the baroque quartet Improviso and performed with them all over the UK and Europe until the Covid lockdown of 2020. Since then, I have been exploring a wide range of improvisation-based practice both solo and with collaborators. I have worked as a musician at many NHS hospitals, and as a member of Live Music Now at care homes and community centres.
In October 2022 I released my first album, bulbul, which draws on improvisation and poetry to tell stories about birds, voices, home, and the spaces in between.
You can follow me on instagram @fictionalfatima to keep updated with performances, and listen to my music on Spotify, Anghami and Apple Music. To contact me, go to the ‘contact’ page on the website. Thank you!