Gwanhyeon Visually Impaired Traditional Arts Group to Perform at House of Sharing
2015-03-19 15:52
The Gwanhyeon Visually Impaired Traditional Performing Arts Team, a wind and string orchestra composed of blind persons, is presenting a gugak performance on March 19 at “House of Sharing,” a shelter in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, for women victims of Japan’s World War II military sexual slavery. Lee Hyeon-ah, who is totally blind, is singing jeongga (a genre of Korean traditional vocal music), and the members of the Performing Arts Team are taking the stage to play changjak gugak (newly composed traditional music), gugak gayo (popular songs in traditional music style), seoljanggu (hourglass drum solo), fusion gugak and other types of traditional music (photo).
The Gwanhyeon Visually Impaired Traditional Performing Arts Team, an affiliate of the Shilloam Visually Impaired Welfare Association (board chair: Rev. Kim Seon-tae), was created in March 2011 as a traditional performing arts team. Its purpose is to revive the legacy of the blind gwanhyeon (orchestra of wind and string instruments) musicians who performed in palace musical groups during the Choseon dynasty. It has given more than 150 performances in Korea and abroad, including a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall in May last year, and is planning a commemorative concert at the Sydney Opera House in Australia this July, in recognition of the effectuation of the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Reporter Yeong Dae Yoo (ydyoo@kmib.co.kr), with Marion Kim (marionkkim@icloud.com)
Click here for the original article in Korean
