It’s not the usual path to stardom – from Buddhist monk to festival favourite, a new life in London and a headline spot in Hitchin.

But that’s just part of the journey for Ngawang Lodup, who is the big name featuring on a World Music At The Sun bill tomorrow night.

Now settled in London after fleeing to the West, he performs songs about his remote homeland, his long-lost family and his faith on both mandolin and dramnyen, a six-string Tibetan lute.

His earliest memories are of his mother singing folk songs as she carried him on her back while tending their livestock, but tradition dictated that as the youngest son he should enter a remote monastery at the age of 14 and spend long days in study in an environment where all musical instruments were banned.

He smuggled in a mandolin and played for other monks starved of music, and eventually left the closed society and, in turn, his country to seek a new life.

Also on the bill at The Sun Hotel from 7.45pm are Luke James Williams, frontman of fondly-remembered North Herts band The October Game, and rising folk name Tilly Dalglish.

Tickets for the Oxfam fundraiser – £10 in advance, £12 on the door – are available from Hitchin’s Churchyard Oxfam shop, David’s Bookshop in Letchworth, and the wegottickets website.