An evening of experimental sound created with traditional instruments - featuring The Greater London Banjo Trio and a duo of guzheng player Zhuyang Liu and daegeum player Dasom Baek.
Poster: Benedict Drew
Doors 7:30pm
Tickets £8-12 Sliding Scale
During the early years of the 20th century there were up to 100 banjo manufacturers in Britain – most of them in London - ranging from individual craftsmen to factories employing scores of workers. By the 1990s only the devotees of the B.M.G. Federation, the Banjo Times and Banjo Broadsheet, and Reading Banjo Festival kept the dying flame flickering. The old London Banjo Club, by now renamed the Westminster Banjo Circle, was also in extremis. In January 1992 the Banjo Circle began publishing their journal and decided that the way forward was to present the banjo to the public at every opportunity. To this end they commended holding regional banjo rallies. Thirty years later, The Greater London Banjo Trio was formed.
Featuring member of Shovel Dance Collective and Milkweed, The Greater London Banjo Trio released their debut tape Do not do doing not via Thanet Tape Centre in September 2025.
Dasom Baek is a composer, improviser, lecturer, Collaborator and performer of traditional Korean instruments, including Daegeum, Sogeum.
Dasom pursues ground-breaking and modern music rooted in traditional Korean instrumental performance. She is a Certified Master of Important Intangible Cultural Asset, no.45. She has achieved Bachelor’s and Master's degrees from the Korea National University of Arts, and is currently undertaking a PhD course at Seoul National University.
An active soloist, she has performed as a Kumho Young Artist and played a concerto with the KBS Gugak Orchestra. She has won both the Park Rokju Gugak Contest and Nanggye Gugak Contest, whilst achieving 2nd place at the Dong-A Gugak Competition. She has also represented Korea at the ASEAN-KOREA International Flute Festival. Active both at home and abroad, in 2019 she was selected as a fellow for the OMI Music program in New York, collaborating with various genres of musicians from different countries. Subsequently, she held a solo concert showcasing her compositions, marking a key milestone in her path to becoming a fully-fledged composer.
Zhuyang Liu is a multimedia artist, sound artist, and producer working within delirious fictional rhythms. They weave sound, installation, theatre, text, and new technology into absurd, multi-layered sonic architectures and immersive experiences.
An international award-winning guzheng soloist known for their experimental and free-improvisational practice, Zhuyang also mastered the Xuanqin (geomungo, recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of China’s ethnic Korean tradition. They continue to carry forward traditional instruments such as the duxianqin (one-string zither ) SanXian, while exploring a broad spectrum of world string instruments including the koto, gayageum etc.
Zhuyang crafts unique instruments and sound systems from both traditional materials and found objects, integrating acoustic and electronic mechanisms to form a distinctive sonic language and aesthetic. Their works guide audiences into layered worlds where sound, installation, instrument, and performance intertwine—humorous, incisive, and hauntingly precise. Described as a kind of “script-writing machine of a collapsing society,” their practice extends the architectural logic of traditional instruments into futuristic and unstable sound environments.