Haekyung Um is Lecturer in Music and a member of the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool. She specialises in the Asian performing arts, focusing on Korea and its diasporas. Her current research includes the global reception of Asian popular culture and Indian classical music in Britain.

Introduction; Chapter 1 Performance; Chapter 2 Origins and Histories; Chapter 3 Text and Music; Chapter 4 Schools and Styles; Chapter 5 Individual Styles; Chapter 6 Aesthetics; Chapter 7 P'ansori in Diaspora; Chapter 8 New P'ansori; conclusion Conclusion: Making P'ansori;

P'ansori is the quintessential traditional Korean musical drama, in which epic tales are sung and narrated by a solo singer accompanied by a drummer. Drawing on her extensive research in Korea and its diasporas, Haekyung Um describes and analyses the creative processes of p'ansori, weaving into her discussion musical, social and cultural aspects that include the evolution of p'ansori performance, origins and historical development, textual and musical materials, stylistic features of different p'ansori schools, transmission of knowledge, aesthetics, and changing interpretations of tradition.