[News Culture] Seoul’s summer concert calendar is getting a distinctly Korean soundtrack.
The National Gugak Center will stage its annual Umyeonsan Starlight Festival across five Saturday nights from Aug. 22 to Sept. 19, turning its outdoor Yeonhui Madang into a showcase for traditional Korean music in some of its most contemporary forms.
With Umyeonsan rising behind the venue, the festival is designed as a relaxed open-air night out rather than a formal concert series. Each week brings a different approach to gugak, ranging from orchestral works and pansori to crossover bands and jazz.
Opening night on Aug. 22 carries a commemorative theme. The National Gugak Center Contemporary Gugak Orchestra, Ha Yoon-joo and Kim Jung-hoon will present “The Korea We Want,” marking both the 81st anniversary of Korea’s liberation and the 150th anniversary of the birth of independence leader Kim Gu.
The mood changes from week to week. Ddolgaengs brings a contemporary edge to pansori on Aug. 29, followed by Lee Sang Band on Sept. 5. Oreumsae takes over the Sept. 12 program with a hybrid of traditional Korean performance and live band music.
Jazz enters the picture for the Sept. 19 finale, when Prelude joins pansori singer Lee Bong-geun and Seong Seul-gi for a crossover set built around Korean folk vocals, including “Sacheolga.”
The festival starts before sunset. From 4 p.m., visitors can take part in craft workshops on the National Gugak Center lawn, with activities including traditional knot-making, indigo dyeing and mother-of-pearl moon jar decoration. Food trucks and a photo booth round out the afternoon program.
Across five weekends, the event places old forms in a modern festival setting — not by stripping away their roots, but by showing how naturally gugak can move between concert music, popular bands and jazz.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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