A massive performance involving 1,004 gayageums will be staged during an annual festival this week to promote the traditional string instrument’s Korean origin, organizers said Wednesday. (Image: Yonhap)
UIJEONGBU, South Korea, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — A massive performance involving 1,004 gayageums will be staged during an annual festival this week to promote the traditional string instrument’s Korean origin, organizers said Wednesday.
“All 1,004 gayageum players will play together at the same time and at the same place as the main event of the 2017 Uijeongbu International Gayageum Festival on Saturday,” the festival secretariat said. Gayamgeum is a 12-stringed instrument dating back to the 6th century.
The fifth annual festival will kick off in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, Friday for a two-day run.
The secretariat said it has planned the massive performance in an effort to make it better known that the gayageum is indigenous to Korea, in the face of China’s claim to be its origin country.
China has designated it as one of its cultural heritages. In 2013 a total of 854 gayageum players performed simultaneously in China, which was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
(Yonhap)
