Research & Impact

Where performance
meets scholarship

Dr Hyelim Kim is an ethnomusicologist and daegeum soloist whose practice research explores how Korean traditional music lives, adapts and creates meaning in a globalised world — through publication, intercultural collaboration, and education.

Visiting Researcher, Bath Spa University  ·  Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers, 2023

Publications & Resources

Tradition and Creativity in Korean Taegum Flute Performance - book cover
Tradition and Creativity in Korean Taegŭm Flute Performance
Monograph · Routledge, 2021 · SOAS Studies in Music

A study of the taegŭm as a living representation of Korean culture — tracing the instrument's history and notation, then drawing on practice research within ethnomusicology to document collaborative encounters with jazz, Western art and electroacoustic music. An exploration of how composers, performers and audiences meet in intercultural performance.

View at Routledge →
An Introduction to the Daegeum - DVD cover
An Introduction to the Daegeum
Filmed guide (DVD) · Academy of Korean Studies Grant (AKS-2017-E00)

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 →

Research Projects & Networks

Ecotones — Bath Spa University
ongoing
Practice research on sound, ecology and place, as Visiting Researcher within Bath Spa's Ecotones project.
Timber Timbre — with Stevie Wishart
2022
Music composed with Timber Festival participants and trees: listening and tuning in to the natural noise-floor of the forest.
Australia–Korea Music Research Network — Western Sydney University
network
Cross-national research exchange on Korean and Australian contemporary music practice.
Studio 88 Residency — Chiang Mai, Thailand
2025
Arts Council Korea overseas residency: a three-track album recorded with Thai musicians, researching shared wind traditions of Asia.
Ecotones at Bath Spa → Australia–Korea Network →

Lectures & Workshops

Hyelim is 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) The daegeum: tradition & extended techniques Intercultural collaboration & practice research Music, nature & place Performing identity & decolonial practice
Enquire about a lecture or workshop