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Hwang Byungki was the foremost South Korean player of the gayageum, a 12-string zither with silk strings. He was also a composer and an authority on sanjo, a form of traditional Korean instrumental music.
In 1951, he began playing the gayageum at The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul, where he studied under the renowned gayageum masters Kim Yeong-yun, Kim Yun-deok, and Shim Sang-geon. In 1959 he graduated from Seoul National University School of Law.
In 1962, he began composing concert and film music using traditional Korean instruments. He presented the premiere performance of Alan Hovhaness's Symphony no. 16 in South Korea in 1963. In 1964 he traveled around the world to Europe, the United States, Japan, and Southeast Asian countries, giving gayageum performances in each place.
In 1985, he served as visiting professor of Korean Music at Harvard University.
In 1990, he led a group of musicians from the South Korea at the Pan-Korean Unification Concert in Pyongyang, North Korea.
After producing his fifth gayageum album in 2007, Hwang continued to compose innovative Korean music.