Sound Trek on Aug. 27 performs in Navoiy, Uzbekistan. (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism)

By Margareth Theresia

Expat musicians in Korea have learned gugak (traditional music) and reinterpreted it in the musical languages of their home countries, thus globally promoting Korea's traditional music abroad.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea International Broadcasting Foundation on Sept. 15 announced that it will release late next month a documentary on the expat group Sound Trek and its process of learning and fostering gugak.

Composed of five episodes, the documentary will be screened around the world on Arirang TV, with parts to be prereleased on the network's official YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/arirang).

Sound Trek is a gugak band of five musicians from Germany, Russia, Mexico, Mongolia and Burkina Faso featuring wind instruments (the flute and the daegeum, a large traditional Korean bamboo flute), keyboards (accordion), traditional vocals, string instruments (the morin khuur, a traditional Mongolian instrument), percussion (the South African drum djembe) and janggu, a traditional Korean hourglass-shaped drum, to show their takes on traditional Korean music.

The members were selected through an audition in April and received intensive training from gugak experts. Afterward, they blended the sounds of the traditional instruments of their own countries and gugak to perform on Aug. 27 the tunes "Sarangga" (Love Song) and "Arirang Medley" at a concert in Navoiy, Uzbekistan.

The Yeongdong World Traditional Music and Arts Expo has invited Sound Trek to perform for the first time in Korea, and the group will do so there on Oct. 18. Opening on Sept. 12, the event through Oct. 11 features gugak content from Korea and abroad in the town of Yeongdong-eup of Yeongdong-gun County, Chungcheongbuk-do Province.

margareth@korea.kr