"Not too many musicians have redefined what the banjo is about the way Woody Sullender has."
- Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

"If he keeps it up, and there seems to be no doubt that he will, he has the potential to become one of the most innovative and historically important players of [the banjo]"
- Tiny Mix Tapes


Woody Sullender is an artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Over the past few years, Sullender has been defining himself as a pre-eminent experimental banjo performer, playing with and against the cultural baggage of the instrument. While alluding to the "traditional" musics of his home states of Virginia and North Carolina, he explores a diverse plane of plucked string music from around the world as well as incorporating punk, noise, free jazz, etc..

Most recently, with technical advising from STEIM, Sullender has been developing an electro-acoustic banjo. Various parameters of computer synthesis and processing algorithms are controlled by sensors on the instrument. The computer-based audio is output to a transducer within the banjo (basically turning the banjo itself into a speaker).

Previously, he has worked with pioneering electronic composers such as Pauline Oliveros and Maryanne Amacher (incorporating his banjo recordings into Amacher's "TEO! A sonic sculpture" which won the Golden Nica prize at the 2005 Ars Electronica festival).

Among other activites, he is occasionally heard DJing on WFMU.