Abdelhadi Belkhaiat, Royal Festival Hall, London; Tziganka Ensemble, Purcell Room, London; London Bulgarian Choir, St Pancras Old Church

Abdelhadi Belkhaiat is billed as the Charles Aznavour of the Maghreb, but comparisons with that lugubrious Armenian seem quite out of place when he walks on stage. He's a comfortably substantial man, with a beaming smile that gets broader as the London-Maghreb audience ululate their welcome. He declaims an Arabic poem, and picks up his oud to play a preliminary flourish: when he sings, his warm, dark tone is imbued with absolute authority; his melismatic ornamentations raise the hairs on the neck.

Abdelhadi Belkhaiat is billed as the Charles Aznavour of the Maghreb, but comparisons with that lugubrious Armenian seem quite out of place when he walks on stage. He's a comfortably substantial man, with a beaming smile that gets broader as the London-Maghreb audience ululate their welcome. He declaims an Arabic poem, and picks up his oud to play a preliminary flourish: when he sings, his warm, dark tone is imbued with absolute authority; his melismatic ornamentations raise the hairs on the neck.

His sober-suited orchestra might have stepped straight out of an old Egyptian poster, and their unison melodies - punctuated by violin and cello solos - could have been the backing music for the great Umm Kulthum. And that's as it should be, because Belkhaiat - making his first London visit for 20 years - was one of the top commercial recording artists of the Seventies.

Song after song brings the audience to their feet, clapping and dancing as though this is a homecoming. Belkhaiat is the sort of performer who draws everyone in, and the result is an evening of irresistible charm. And charm in spades is what I find the next day in the Purcell Room, where the Tziganka Ensemble serenade a Mittel-Europaischer audience with songs from their Crimean homeland.

A guitar, a button-accordion, a balalaika - and what's that cumbersome thing like the fin of a giant shark? A bass balalaika, played by a blond youth whose chiselled features perfectly echo its angular contours. The group crack sweet old Jewish jokes and play sweet old Jewish tunes, then on comes their singer, a diminutive goddess with a voice that modulates from a whisper to a blaring horn. The leader produces a baby balalaika and plays a high-pitched ditty, then the singer delivers "Yiddisher Mama", "Faded Violets", and finally the Ur-version of "Those Were the Days". Everyone goes out with a song in their heart.

But I find the highlight of the week in an urban wasteland. St Pancras Old Church is packed for a Christmas performance by the London Bulgarian Choir