Everything has changed

I came from Ukraine and was totally lost in this city – in this country. Luckily, I had a neighbour who knew about Starling Sessions. I texted John and Lauren, and that’s how I got involved. Starling Sessions is mostly about gathering people together. A person is free to introduce a song from their background, which will usually have some impact on them. We learn all these songs, do lots of community performances, and then we usually have a final big performance.

My first experience of Starlings was a five-day residency. I texted John and Lauren: ‘I'm a Ukrainian singer, may I come?’ And they said, ‘Yeah sure!’ It was like a very short, intense version of Starlings. There were ten or fifteen of us, and we learnt three or four songs each day. We even managed to find a spot to perform at a festival. I was a bit scared and lost at the time – it was just me and my daughter in this new country, in these new circumstances. But Starling Sessions helped me settle in.

After the residency, I started the usual sessions. I’m a music teacher, so it wasn’t stressful to teach my song, and now I even run some of the sessions if someone can’t make it. I was satisfied, because I was engaged in something, and I was appreciated, and people liked my song. You don't know how people will react, especially when it's a different language. But in the end, it's not that scary.

I think people who come to these sessions are quite different, maybe a bit weird sometimes, but we still have something in common, which makes us part of something bigger. There’s the idea of bringing out stories through music. Every person finds something for themselves. For example, we have a Polish girl who said that Polish songs were all about patriarchy. But she’s now found very feminist songs from the region that she is originally from. And she was really very grateful for that possibility, because she didn't know that song existed. So, telling stories and finding songs is also very important for me. I recently taught them the song of Crimean Tatars, which is a language that I don't understand at all, and the music is completely different from Ukrainian, but they are part of my country and my culture.

When we work on a song, John and Lauren give us the road map, but the people around are also inputting through their ideas, the timbres of their voices, or their instruments, some of which are quite weird! Sometimes it looks a bit insane, and people are making weird jokes, proposing their mad ideas and you first think it's a disaster, but then in the end it brings some sort of energy that leads you to a new decision within the song. New people bring something new, and take something when they go, whether that be a particular instrument, a voice, or a sense of humour. So it all works as one, but it’s also guided by John and Lauren. It works like a magnet. People want to be back.

Everything has changed because of Starling Sessions! I’m gonna start crying now. It’s very hard to be on your own. But I was sharing my songs, learning bits from other cultures, and I found my friends. Yesterday I went to a gig, I was volunteering there, and half of the crowd I knew! People from Starling Sessions are really open and ready to help. We chat mostly about music, and people invite everyone to their parties, to birthdays. It's like a huge network. When you need something, you can get the help or support, even if you just need a spare bike. This project is something that I really wanted to do back in Ukraine, and now I've got the possibility to do it for free!

The core of Starlings is not the idea of what we're doing, it’s John and Lauren. You can take the principle and do something similar, but it’s very important that those two people are running it. It’s their style, their musical ideas, their feeling of the group, their kindness and empathy, and - what is the most important - their sense of humour. But the biggest thing is our connection with people, and the attitude and respect.

Starlings is my main source of communication. The people from Starlings have become part of my life. They’re people you can feel comfortable with and can trust and share the same interests with. And that’s been really important, knowing someone is there for you, when it’s not easy to talk to my family and friends who stayed in Ukraine or are elsewhere in the world.

And they have so many ideas that I didn't know about Oxford or England. They're bringing new interests in my life. They even took me to the pub, so I got to know what pubs are!

The second very important part of this: in this community I feel my value, and that I'm acknowledged and appreciated. It just brings me up, in my own eyes, and again it’s about my wellbeing. Starling Sessions was in the right place, in the right time.

John and Lauren enabled a lot of this. It’s the different skills they have, but it's mostly the kind of people they are. They’re extremely kind, empathetic, and they often think ahead. One huge part of what they are doing now is bringing people in the asylum hotel into the group. It’s difficult because lots of those people don’t know English, and they’re a bit scared. Being myself, I would probably just stick with something familiar. But John and Lauren are brave enough to do things like that, as well.

People just love being at Starling Sessions. And it’s probably not even about the music, not for me personally, for the record! I don’t like every song. Some songs I’m just like, gosh! Not again! But despite that, there’s a sense of community that keeps me coming back.