Professor Jiyoung Yi studied gayageum at the Department of Korean Traditional Music, Seoul National University (SNU), where she also completed her master’s degree. She later earned the first doctoral degree in gayageum performance in Korea at Ewha Womans University. Currently, she is a professor in the Department of Korean Traditional Music at SNU and is a designated trainee of the Important Intangible Cultural Property “Gayageum Sanjo and Byeongchang.”

Professor Lee has served as president of the preservation societies for the Seong Geon-chul and Kim Byeong-ho schools of gayageum sanjo, and she is also the current president of the Asia Zither Exchange Association. With her deep understanding of traditional Korean music, she has performed internationally at numerous invited concerts and has collaborated extensively with contemporary composers, thereby expanding the modern potential of the gayageum.

She has edited and published several important music scores, including A Collection of Ji-Young Lee’s Heteun Garak for Gayageum, Gyeongju Pungnyu for Gayageum and Yanggeum, Seong Geon-chul School Gayageum Sanjo, and Yang Yeon-seop’s Gayageum Jeongak Score from the Former National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts Training Institute. Her book Modern Notation for Gayageum: For Performers and Composers was selected as an Excellent Academic Book by the National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea.

In recognition of her artistic achievements, Professor Lee has received numerous awards, including the Today’s Young Artist Award (2003), the KBS Traditional Music Award for String Performance (2012), the Korean Culture and Arts Award (Presidential Citation, 2020), and the Kwanjae Korean Traditional Music Prize (2025).

Hyejin Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Composition at Sungshin Women's University. She received her bachelor's degree in composition from Sungshin Women's University and earned both her MA and PhD in musicology from Seoul National University. Her research focuses on 19th-century music history, music aesthetics, and contemporary Korean composition. Her major publications include “A Study on the Genre Characteristics of the Programmatic Concert Overture in the Late 19th Century,” “On the Changing Relationship between Music and Language in Liszt’s Symphonic Poems,” and “Hanslick and the German Musical World in the Late 19th Century.”

HeeSook Oh is Professor of Musicology at the College of Music, Seoul National University, where she focuses on aesthetics of music and contemporary Korean music. She earned her BA in piano from Ewha Womans University and completed her MA and PhD in musicology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She has served as president of both the Korean-German Music Society and the Korean Society of Western Music, and currently leads the Society for Music Aesthetics. Her major publications include Quoted Music as Cultural Symbol (2022), When Music Stops, Real Music Begins (2021), Korean Contemporary Music through the Lens of Interculturality (2020), and A History of Korean Contemporary Music through Composition (2019). She has also contributed to edited volumes and collaborative

works that explore the intersections of music with technology, philosophy, and global culture, such as Music and AI in the Posthumanist Era (2022) and Superman or Frankenstein? – Music and Technology in the Age of AI (2024). She received the SNU Teaching Award in 2010 and is currently the principal investigator of a National Research Foundation project for Outstanding Scholars (2021–2026).

Professor Kim Hee-sun received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Korean music from Seoul National University and earned her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh. She has held research positions at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore and the Institute for Traditional Music at Seoul National University, and has served as Executive Director of the World Music Center Foundation, Head of Research at the National Gugak Center, and Chair of the East Asia Study Group of the ICTMD (International Council for Traditional Music and Dance). Currently a professor at Kookmin University, she also serves as Executive Committee Chair of the Jeonju International Sori Festival. Bridging scholarship and practice, her work focuses on the modernization and globalization of Korean music, world music, and musical exchanges during the Cold War. Her major publications include Vamping the Stage (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), Presence through Sound (Routledge, 2021), and Contemporary Gugak(National Gugak Center, 2024).

Anna Yates is Associate Professor in the Department of Korean Music at Seoul National University, specializing in ethnomusicology. She received her doctorate in music from SOAS, University of London in 2017, with a dissertation exploring the reconciliation of tradition and creativity in contemporary p’ansori. Her research focuses on the global circulation of Korean traditional music, particularly the

transnational dynamics of p’ansori. She has published widely on this topic, including articles in Yearbook for Traditional Music, Celebrity Studies, and the world of music (new series), and co-authored volumes such as Korean Literature through the Korean Wave (2019) and On Translating Modern Korean Poetry (2022). As a performer, she has presented p’ansori on international stages including the Élysée Palace in Paris (2018) and Cadogan Hall in London (2015). In recognition of her contribution to the global dissemination of Korean traditional music, she received a commendation from the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2023.