[National Gugak Center] "Museum of Gugak: Gonggan Ieum”

National Gugak Center opens a space dedicated to North Korean Music "Gonggan Ieum” and a special exhibition on North Korean performing arts "From Moran Hill to the Daedong River: Traditional Performing Arts of North Korea”.

On August 10^th National Gugak center presents a special space dedicated to North Korean traditional music, called "Gonggan Ieum”. It is a depository of more than 82 000 pieces of material on North Korean music, that has been gathered by the National Gugak Center for more than 25 years.  The space contains music sheets, books, pictures, videos, pamphlets, various audio recordings, as well as Korean traditional music instruments produced in North Korea.

"This year, our center established the "Museum of Gugak: Gonggan Ieum” in the museum, and also opened a Library for North Korean Music that can be said the fruit of years of research on North Korean music carried out by our center since 1990. Various types of material though which one can learn about the music-scene of North Korea in the 1950-1960s are ready to meet the public,” said the Director-General of the National Gugak Center Jae-won Lim.

In 2016 the Museum received the governmental license to use, store and distribute more than 15 000 pieces of the materials on North Korean performing arts, received from the Ministry of Unification of Korea.

The whole collection is categorized and digitized in a state-of-art manner, where all the necessary information could be reached within seconds. The space also comprises valuable artifacts related to North Korean Music from book series, published in the 1950s to hard copies of musical journals still being published in North Korea.

"Gonggan Ieum” is aimed both at ordinary audience who is interested in the North Korean music, as well as at scholars and researchers, since it is a vast collection of exclusive materials on North Korean music, gathered by our center throughout years,” mentioned San-hyeok Son, Korean Art researcher.

Based on the materials from the ‘Gonggan Ieum” the Gugak Center also opens the special exhibition on North Korean performing arts "From Moran Hill to the Daedong River: Traditional Performing Arts of North Korea”, where visitors can experience the sound of various North Korean musical instruments, see them in live and also admire the real piece of art – a miniature of the National Opera in Pyeongyang "Chunhyeonjeon”. The exhibition will open for visitors from August 8^th to December 6^th, and is operating on the 3^rd floor of the National Gugak Museum. The exhibition will be operating free of charge.