National Gugak Center and the Museum of Gugak

The National Gugak(*) Center’s Museum of Gugak is Korea’s only Gugak-specialized museum that displays various Gugak archives and instruments and offers the experience of learning the flow of the thousand-year-old Gugak style at a glance. Opened in 1995, the Center’s Museum of Gugak has served as an active Gugak educational center with its permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions with in-depth topics. In 2011, the remodeling project was executed in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the National Gugak Center, revamping it into 6 exhibit halls with 7 different themed halls, and the Center was reopened in August 2012. The 6 permanent exhibit halls with 7 themes house various Gugak instruments and over 250 Gugak-related audio and video archives, as well as 3D Visual Image screens 3D animations. The National Gugak Center is also researching the historical relations between Korean and the world music, and successfully organized an international conference on the music and relics of the Silk Road in 2016.

(*) Gugak: ‘Traditional music’ in the Korean language.