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All Music Guide:
Hwang Byung-ki is one of Korea's foremost composers. A master of the twelve string kayagum (zither), Byung-ki has used the ancient instrument to express his modern compositions. Fanfare praised Byung-ki's compositions for being "lyrical, picturesque and meditative". A graduate of the Seoul National University law school, Byung-ki studied traditional Korean music at the National Center for Korean Traditional Peforming Arts. A two time winner of the National Traditional Muic Contest, Byung-ki received a Korean Screen Soundtrack award in 1973 and the Choong-ang Cultural award in 1992. In addition to performing throughout Korea and North America, Byung-ki teaches at the Ewha Woman's University. A book of his musical scores, focusing on his interpretations of the improvised solo instrumental style of sanjo, was published by Ewha Woman's University Press.
Wikipedia:
This is a Korean name; the family name is Hwang.Hwang Byungki (b. Seoul, 1936) is the foremost South Korean player of the gayageum, a 12-string zither with silk strings. Hwang is also a composer and an authority on Korean sanjo, a form of traditional Korean instrumental music.
In 1951 he began playing gayageum at The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul, where he studied under the famous gayageum masters Kim Yeong-yun (김영윤), Kim Yun-deok (김윤덕), and Shim Sang-geon (심상건). 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.
Since producing his fifth gayageum album in 2007, Hwang continues to compose innovative Korean music. Ranging in style from the evocation of traditional genres to avant-garde experimentation, a selection of these pieces is available on a series of five albums. He is an emeritus professor of Korean music at Ewha Womans University. Hwang also teaches a course entitled "The Introduction to Korean Traditional Music" at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Hwang serves on the government's Cultural Properties Preservation Committee, and in 2000 was appointed to the National Academy of Arts.