The Dan Whitehouse & Max ZT Experience - Ten Steps 2025

This transatlantic collaboration fuses multi-cultural traditions with shared beliefs in the importance of music for communication and well-being, as the ‘Jimi Hendrix of the hammered dulcimer’ Max ZT and Black Country/Tokyo singer-songwriter/guitarist Dan Whitehouse’s blend their haunting virtuosic instrumental, soulful song and spoken-word - at once timeless and decidedly modern.

Tackling subjects as wide-ranging as fatherhood, practising golf swings as a metaphor for life, the way the Japanese sunlight bounces off buildings “like God’s graffiti”, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Max ZT and Dan Whitehouse’s songs shimmer with restless inventiveness and draw you in with their irresistible intimacy. The duo will perform music from their album 'Ten Steps’ (recorded between New York City and Tokyo) as well as intriguing improvisations to create an interwoven set of spoken word, song and virtuoso instrumentation.

Max ZT is a lauded innovator, described by NPR as the “Jimi Hendrix of hammered dulcimer”. Although he takes his roots from Irish folk music, he has created complex and beautiful compositions and expanded that influence through studying in Senegal with the Cissoko griot family and to India where he studied under the santoor master Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. Dan Whitehouse has, across seven solo albums, gained a golden reputation as “a fine songwriter, a unique vocal talent and a talented multi-instrumentalist/performer” - Maverick, and “wonderful” – BBC 6 Music.

“Gorgeous… and intriguing” The Guardian
“…both extraordinary and beautiful” KLOF MAG
“Sublime…” At The Barrier

“We try to be in the moment as much as possible. If you can get your musical fluency into a place where you can just play, that’s Heaven.” says Max. “We rarely get such moments of stillness in life." agrees Dan.

Ten Steps Live at Silk Mill Studios

Shizuka Live at Silk Mill Studios