Rockdale Experiments and Stadium Rockdale are thrilled to present, from China via London, the Sydney debut of celebrated guzheng player Zhuyang Liu. Zhuyang will be playing in a trio with two of Sydney’s finest young musicians; drummer Hayley Chan and saxophonist Hinano Fujisaki. This will be an exciting first meeting that should not be missed!
Opening the evening will be another new trio, the surnames only aggregation of Fedorovitch/Jones/Powrie. Dedicated observers of the local scene may be able to guess who and what may be involved, but you’ll have to make your way down to Stadium Rockdale to see for sure.
Zhuyang Liu (guzheng) / Hayley Chan (drums) / Hinano Fujisaki (tenor saxophone)
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Fedorovitch (bass guitar) / Jones (drums) / Powrie (synth, flute)
Friday 4 July 2025
7:30 pm (Doors at 7pm)
Stadium Rockdale
Level 1, 5 Tramway Arcade, Rockdale
$20 / $15 on the door
Stadium Rockdale is very close to Rockdale Station but requires attendees to climb a couple of flights of stairs.
Zhuyang Liu is a Guzheng musician, trans-media artist, producer who plays nylon- and steel-strung Guzheng, multi-tone Guzheng, and other plucked string instruments, including Xuan Qin, Duxian Qin, Koto, and more. Their multidisciplinary work spans sound, writing, spoken word, and cross-media performances. They were awarded prizes for both solo and ensemble performances at the China-Japan-Korea International Guzheng Conference in 2013.
With a background rooted in diverse cultural and artistic fields, Zhuyang explores and fuses ethnic and contemporary soundscapes. They utilize found materials to create unconventional instruments and electronics, improvising with complex, fictional rhythms that evoke a broad, immersive sonic landscape. As a researcher, Zhuyang mainly focus on sound politics, forensics in sound ecology, musicology and Instruments. Writing includes ‘The Sonic Arsenal of Alternative Instruments: An ‘Unconventional Warfare’ in Sound, Noise, and Conflict.’
Zhuyang has collaborated across diverse fields and disciplines. They have composed scores and designed sound for numerous acclaimed independent films and stage works, sound direction for fashion collections, audio engineering and recording for Triple-A video games, designing acoustic systems and sound environments. They are the film producer of the album ‘Music in the realm of Fireflies’（World Music Awards）. In queer film ‘Run! Dorothy Run!’ and ‘Fox and Women’ by Jinghao Shen, Zhuyang’s compositions integrate Chinese Xiqu, Peking Opera, folk songs, Asian instruments, and local field recordings with contemporary scopes held in the collection of CAFA art museum
Zhuyang’s UK and China-based projects include the experimental collective Lao San Yang 老三样 explores the expressive potential of experimental art, global music, theatre opera, free improvisation, cross-media narratives, electronic music, noise, installations, and ethnic instruments in a contemporary context. Water Dragon Temple is a fully improvised album, Duo with Paul Chenour on flutes released in 2023. EP ‘Slip animals’ (2023) is an electronic-acoustic fusion solo album produced and composed by Zhuyang. ‘’Other projects include the duo Epic Life Doggerel Verse and the hybrid electronic project system ZHUYANGER 撞.
Recent performances have taken place such as British Museum, Hundred Years Gallery / Frappant e.V. Gallery Hamburg/ Pushkin House/ Copeland Gallery /JZ Jazz Club, Hangzhou/ SYSTEM , Shanghai
Hayley Chan is a performer, improviser, and composer from Warrane/Sydney. Having grown up as the only female drummer in her school in Western Sydney, Hayley sought to research gender equality in Sydney’s music scene through her studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, graduating with a Bachelor of Music (First Class Honours) in 2024. Praised for being "an incredible drummer and sensitive musician" (Chloe Kim, Australian drummer) and "creative and technically precise" (Simon Barker, Australian drummer), her artistry seeks to transcend boundaries between musical genres, emulating formidable Australian artists such as Maria Moles, Bree van Reyk, and Andrea Keller.
Hinano Fujisaki is an Eora/Sydney based saxophonist, improviser and composer and inaugural Judy Bailey Emerging Composer Scholarship recipient . After the release of the highly celebrated album ‘Where You Came From’ from the collaborative trio project Sandcastles, Fujisaki continued to expand her practice as a composer. Her debut EP, ‘Home Is’ reflects feelings of warmth and gratitude from spending a lot of time at home during the Covid lockdowns. Her melodies evoke images and memories, drawing inspiration from a wide range of music, from Japanese folk songs to Hermeto Pascoal to the Miles Davis album ‘Live-Evil’.