Gayageum master Hwang Byung-ki passes away

  

(https://www.obitpatrol.com)

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Korean traditional music master Hwang Byung-ki died from chronic illness, Wednesday. He was 82.

A member of his family said Hwang was treated for a cerebral stroke last December, but died of pneumonia he'd developed as a complication.

Hwang is best known as the foremost player of the gayageum (12-string Korean zither). He was also a composer and specialist in sanjo, a type of Korean traditional instrumental music.

He is credited with broadening the horizon of traditional Korean music by infusing diverse genres and fields of arts into it. As an artist he created his own area of specialization by challenging conventional belief and pulling together his own performance. While alive, he described himself as "an old man with a teenager's heart."
He started playing the gayageum in 1951 and studied at the Seoul National University's School of Law, because the national university did not have a Department of Korean Music until 1959.

Hwang debuted as a professional gayageum player in 1962 and composed "The Forest," which is considered the first modern piece written for the gayageum, in the same year.

The musician gained international recognition and was invited to the Festival of Music and Art of This Century in Hawaii in 1965 and recorded his first album there, which included traditional gayageum sanjo and his own compositions together.

Hwang became a professor at Ewha Womans University, teaching Korean traditional music, in 1974 and fostered young talented musicians until he retired in 2001. He also served as the artistic director of the National Orchestra of Korea and executive director of the Nam June Paik Cultural Foundation.

His compositions are known to have pushed the boundaries of Korean traditional music. "Chimhyangmu," written in 1974, revived music from the Shilla Kingdom (57 BC-935 AD), while "Bidangil" (Silk Road) was inspired by a Persian glass from a Shilla tomb.

Hwang's most famous creation is "The Labyrinth," which premiered in 1975 and showcases Hwang's effort to combine gayageum melody with jazz and folk music.

Hwang continued to experiment with the possibilities of Korean traditional music by collaborating with Western chamber ensembles and modern dance companies.

Andrew Killick, author of "Hwang Byungki: Traditional Music and the Contemporary Composer in the Republic of Korea," said Hwang's contributions to date are interwoven with other contributions to contemporary interpretations of Korean traditional music.
 

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2018/01/317_243397.html

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