Sue (or Sumo) was born in
Southampton in 1981. She moved to Somerset at the age of 6, which is
where she spent most of her upbringing. She has a
degree of combined honours of BA Music and Visual Practises at
Dartington College of Arts in Devon. Her main instruments are the
guitar and the mandolin particularly for folk music; she also plays a
large variety of instruments and uses this experience to give her an
open view and interest when listening to music.
Traditional music from around the world is one of Sue’s
strongest passions. As an artist with a Chinese background brought up
in UK, the mixture of culture has fascinated her in arts and music from
everywhere on the world. She has joined ensembles such as Indonesian
Gamelan and Samba and loves to share her fascination in performance.
Sue has helped to promote the Dartington Gamelan and SCAT Samba to
perform in festivals in Taunton in the past. "I like to
introduce people to music that they have not come across before. I am
always on the lookout for musicians from different cultures. It is very
rewarding to find venues for musicians to share their
culture." (Sumo). The MultiCultural Festival in 2004 held in
Taunton, Somerset was her latest project involving Asian arts in
Taunton.
Dartington College of Arts specialises in contemporary arts and has
inspired Sue to plan future projects of experimental music and film for
Taunton. Filmmaking has been her latest interest, she has composed a
number of short films. She does not want to forget everything she has
studied in music and film that her films are composed by music and
sounds. Miniatures is her most recent film project; it is a set of
short films about a minute each that are put together after collecting
the music. Miniatures has had a couple of showings in Dartington and
will continue to be worked on.
After her degree at Dartington, Sue will be working on independent
projects for Taunton and elsewhere. She chooses to work as a freelance
so that she can do everything that she has studied, “I
don’t want to be stuck with one job that uses one skill. I
learnt do many things and I intend to use all those skills in the
future. I love doing them and I don’t want to forget
them.” (2006).
