2026 Leeds Korean Day Festival

Korea comes to Leeds for two days this November, and it arrives with a yanggeum, a 3D audio lab and a box of mother-of-pearl.

The 2026 Leeds Korean Day Festival takes over the University of Leeds on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 November. Its theme is Tradition × Innovation in Korea, and the programme takes that pairing literally: a scholar explaining what happens in your brain at a concert, then a workshop where you weave natural fibres by hand; a band amplifying a centuries-old zither through bass and drums, then a student pitching the future of K-pop to Warner Music Korea. Entry is free and almost everything is free to book.

**FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER — SCHOOL OF MUSIC**

The first day belongs to ideas and making.

It opens with three researchers from KAIST, Korea’s leading science and technology institute, in a morning of public lectures on AI and music. Dr Sungyoung Kim works on spatial audio as therapy — training that helps people with hearing loss pick speech out of noise, at home rather than in a clinic. Dr Kyung Myun Lee directs the Music and Brain Lab and studies why we feel closer to strangers at a concert, using repertoire from classical to K-pop. Prof. Juhan Nam, who built synthesizers before he built research labs, asks what it takes for a machine to play live alongside a human performer. Free, open to anyone, in person and online.

The afternoon turns practical. Four hands-on workshops run through the day, each two hours or less, materials provided, no experience needed. You can experiment with AI as a design tool using Korean traditional motifs; learn dotjari, Korean mat weaving, from an artist whose work is held by the V&A; draw colour out of plants and roots in a natural dyeing session; or make a keyring in jagae, Korean mother-of-pearl craft.

At half past two, students take the stage for the K-pop × AI Student Innovation Pitch Showcase, imagining how K-pop and artificial intelligence might work together — in performance, production, fandom, or the industry itself — and pitching to professionals from S2 Entertainment and Warner Music Korea, who judge and give feedback. Prizes for the top three, and something for everyone who presents. Those same industry figures stay on for the K-pop Market Talk, an hour on how the Korean music business actually works, with Jeong-Hoon Alex Kim, Head of A&R at Warner Music Korea, and A&R director Doyeun Kim.

The day closes with music. Dongyang Gozupa — “Eastern High Frequency” — play the Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall at half past seven. Their instrument is the yanggeum, a Korean metal-stringed zither, put in a trio with bass and percussion to make something closer to progressive post-rock than to court music: rhythmic, loud, entirely instrumental. WOMEX called them one of Korea’s most exciting crossover acts. Part of the UK-wide K-Music Festival 2026.

**SATURDAY 14 NOVEMBER — STAGE@LEEDS**

Saturday is the open day, and you can simply turn up.

From ten in the morning, Stage One becomes a Korean pop-up market. Seven makers bring their work from Korea and from Leeds: hand-pieced jogakbo patchwork and a hanbok you can try on; minhwa folk painting, where beginners of any age can paint a fan or write “Leeds” in Hangul as a munjado; probiotic cleansing bars drawn from Korean bathhouse culture; skincare from Seoul; Korean hair and scalp care; and a studio that makes Korea in miniature. HAMA, a Korean restaurant in Leeds, cooks through the day — kimbap, jeon, japchae, Korean fried chicken. Squid Game and traditional Korean games run as pop-ups with the Leeds University Korean Society, and the Leeds K-pop Dance Society performs.

Two exhibitions run alongside, free to walk through. Soojin Kang’s woven work begins in the language of Korean mat weaving and then lets go of it: cloth becomes fringe, fringe becomes a falling line, and the weaving leaves the wall. Flowing Landscapes, by Dr Jihye Park, follows the Korean ink landscape — sansuhwa — into code and then into cloth, shown as moving image and digital garment rather than anything cut and sewn.

There is live music in the afternoon. James An, a Seoul rapper who writes in Korean and English about racism and daily life and reached the top 30 on Show Me The Money 10, plays the Alec Clegg Studio at one o’clock. At half past two the Leeds Gayageum Group bring out the twelve-string zither for an hour, from traditional repertoire to new writing.

**PLANNING YOUR VISIT**

Both days are at the University of Leeds, a short walk from the city centre. Friday is at the School of Music; Saturday is at Stage@Leeds. Entry is free, and every talk, workshop and concert is booked separately — search “Leeds Korean Day Festival” at openup.leeds.ac.uk. Workshop places are limited. Cash and PayPal are preferred at the market stalls, and the fan-painting booth charges a small materials fee. Both concerts are amplified.