“How does a thousand-year-old instrument become the sound of here and now?”
Dr Hyelim Kim is an ethnomusicologist and daegeum soloist. Her practice research pursues one question along three strands — tradition, place, and technology — with intercultural, decolonial collaboration as its method.
Tradition & Creativity
Does a tradition survive by being preserved — or by continuing to create?
- Tradition and Creativity in Korean Taegŭm Flute Performance — monograph, Routledge 2021
- Pungryu (2021) · Transition / 연음 (2017) — albums
- An Introduction to the Daegeum — filmed guide, AKS grant
- Teaching at universities & conservatoires
Sound, Place & Ecology
How does the breath of the daegeum converse with a landscape?
- Ecotones — Bath Spa Universityongoing
- Two Geographies, One Breath — Borneo & Bathin progress
- Timber Timbre — with Stevie Wishart, supported by the National Forest (2022)
- Echoes of Water — UK–Malaysia, British Council
- Korean Music with Nature — film series
Technology & the Extended Instrument
What can technology teach a bamboo flute — and what can it learn from one?
- Daegeum & live electronics — composition series
- Dansang — short films, PRS Foundation · award, LA 2021
- Sound commission — Sydney Opera House
Intercultural & Decolonial Practice
Every strand is pursued through collaboration across cultures — not as a theme, but as a way of working: shared authorship, long listening, and traditions meeting as equals.
Publications & Resources
Tradition and Creativity in Korean Taegŭm Flute Performance
A study of the taegŭm as a living representation of Korean culture — tracing the instrument’s history and notation, then drawing on practice research to document collaborative encounters with jazz, Western art and electroacoustic music.
View at Routledge →An Introduction to the Daegeum
A filmed guide to the Korean bamboo flute, produced and performed by Hyelim Kim — history, structure, performing techniques and classic repertoire. Made as the resource she wished she could place in every new student’s hands.
About the DVD →Lectures & Workshops
Available to universities, conservatoires and cultural institutions for guest lectures, lecture-recitals, masterclasses and hands-on workshops — in person or online.
- Korean traditional music (gugak) Strand I
- The daegeum: tradition & extended techniques Strand I · III
- Music, nature & place Strand II
- Intercultural collaboration & practice research Method
- Performing identity & decolonial practice Method