When people think of South Korea or Seoul, they mention K-pop or K-dramas. But 27-year-old Jeong Seung-jun, chose a different path. He chose to be a Jeongga vocalist.
Jeongga, a genre of Korean traditional music, was traditionally sung by the nobility during the Joseon period. According to Britannica, the period between 1392 to 1910 was named after the dynasty, Joseon, that ruled the Korean peninsula.
Seung-jun explained how Jeongga is the only vocal music that falls under formal music, and it’s something he knew he wanted a career in.
“I randomly heard it when I was young, and a friend and I decided to learn it together as an after-school activity. I ended up really loving it,” he told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.
Not only is Seung-jun a Jeongga vocalist, he is also recognised as part of Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 30. The 27-year-old, who performed a traditional Korean song at the Sharjah Cultural Palace as part of a cultural exchange event, also surprised the audience with a performance of the popular Arabic song Mohem Jiddan, which had the crowd erupt in applause.
When he began this journey, he says his parents were supportive despite thinking otherwise.
“They secretly thought, “There’s no way that my son getting in to the National Gugak Middle School,” he said. But him getting into that school pushed his parents to support him “one hundred per cent”, he says.
Today, not only is Seung-jun performing in different countries, he is also currently majoring in this genre in college, writing and composing his own music, and trying to be a good example to the new vocalists joining to become Jeongga vocalists.
