London - 7 January 2017

1. Various of Reverend Dr Shafiq Abouzayd performing on stage

2. Various of Abouzayd and Merit Ariane Stephanos performing

3. Tilt down from Stephanos' face to her hands as she sings

4. Various of Jon Banks playing the qanoun

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Merit Ariane Stephanos, half-Coptic Egyptian, half-German singer and composer:

"Some of the chants we were singing have roots that go back to the early Christianity. But there is also research going on that they are pre-Christian songs and that the Church then took the old melodies and put their own words to it. And I think, for me, these songs are a symbol of our interconnectedness."

6. Stephanos and Banks performing

7. Sheet of music next to the qanoun

8. Tilt down of Najib Coutya playing the oud

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Merit Ariane Stephanos, half-Coptic Egyptian, half-German singer and composer:

"In our world today as it is, there is a lot of fear, a lot of hatred, the rhetoric is to make people afraid of 'the other'. And really the message is that 'the other' as such doesn't exist. There is a continuous development in our humanity, and we constantly evolve and develop. And the idea that Europe is Christian and the Arab world is Muslim, again, is a lie."

10. Various of Coutya playing the oud

11. Various of Coutya chanting

12. Various of Hala Arsalan singing

13. SOUNDBITE (English) Hala Arsalan, singer:

"It's to show love and to live in peace. You know, we need it at this time."

14. Pan right of audience

15. Abouzayd singing and Banks playing the qanoun, with Stephanos next to them

16. Abouzayd singing

17. Pan left of Banks, Stephanos and Abouzayd

18. Various end of performance, audience applauding, Banks, Stephanos and Abouzayd bowing

LEAD IN:

As Copts and Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas, an event in London has been held for the occasions and out on a show of early Arab Christian chants.

But performers also want to send a message of peace and unity through the songs of Aramaic and Byzantine traditions.

STORY-LINE:

The lilting and elongated tones of Reverend Shafiq Abouzayd resonate over this London audience.

With candles and festive decorations beside him, Abouzayd, the senior Melkite Greek Catholic priest in Britain, is joined in a melody.

He sings alongside half-Coptic Egyptian, half-German singer and composer Merit Ariane Stephanos, accompanied by British multi-instrumentalist Jon Banks on the qanoun.

They are performing chants from the Aramaic-Syriac and Byzantine traditions.

Leabanese-British Abouzayd has been a priest at the Maronite Church since 1987 and studied Aramaic-Syriac and Arabic at the monastery of the Lebanese Maronite Missionaries in Jounieh, Lebanon. Stephanos has spent time researching Arab Christian chants in Lebanon.

The event, entitled 'Arab Christmas' is being held around the celebration of the Coptic and Orthodox Christmases, on the 6 and 7 January respectively.

It aims to give a platform to music that is rarely heard outside of Christian communities in the Middle East, and from a small number of well-known singers from the region.

The long history of the chants is something the Stephanos is keen to get across.

"Some of the chants we were singing have roots that go back to the early Christianity," Stephanos says.

"But there is also research going on that they are pre-Christian songs and that the Church then took the old melodies and put their own words to it."

Yet, there is a wider message she wants to give with the performance, at a time of conflict in the Middle East and tensions globally, in part due to problems such as the refugee crisis.

"For me, these songs are a symbol of our interconnectedness," Stephanos says of the traditions that began as part of a Middle East religion that would come to dominate Europe.

"In our world today as it is, there is a lot of fear, a lot of hatred, the rhetoric is to make people afraid of 'the other'. And really the message is that 'the other' as such doesn't exist."

"There is a continuous development in our humanity, and we constantly evolve and develop. And the idea that Europe is Christian and the Arab world is Muslim, again, is a lie," she adds.

Singer Najib Coutya performs non-liturgical religious Christmas hymns, with his oud as accompaniment.

Born in Lebanon's Tripoli and now living in London, Coutya separately gives liturgical Christmas chants from the Greek Orthodox tradition.

Coutya's father was a choirmaster and singer of Byzantine and Arabic Church music, renowned across the Middle East, who taught him these oral traditions.

He improvises them as well as using the Arabic maqam and Greek Byzantine melodic systems.

The chants consist of a system of about 20 complex modes, full of quarter-tones.

Coutya sings these chants in Arabic in a London-based choir. Their repertoire includes pieces traceable to as far back as as the 3rd Century AD.

He wants to both continue the tradition with authentic skill while innovating and improvising to keep them alive.

Also at the event is Hala Arsalan, a Syrian-British soprano who studied at the Damascus Conservatory.

Bringing songs she began singing at an early age in her hometown of Salamiyah in Syria, the soloist, who usually performs with the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, mirrors Stephanos in what she wants 'Arab Christmas' to represent:

"It's to show love and to live in peace. You know, we need it at this time."