About
I would rather be remembered not as a master player, but as someone who planted the seed of Korean music in hard ground — patiently, and in earnest.
Woosung Jung
Director of the Meari Chwitadae · Based in New York / New Jersey
I play the wind instruments of Korean traditional music — Daegeum, Sogeum, Danso, Taepyeongso — along with the percussion instruments Janggu.
I entered the national conservatory in Seoul at thirteen and have been at this since. I taught teachers before I performed for a living, worked in programme planning at the National Gugak Center, and was sent to the Korean-Chinese schools of Jilin and Heilongjiang by the Overseas Koreans Foundation. I have lived in the United States since December 2018, first in Chicago and now in New Jersey. Wherever I have been, the work has been the same: to perform, and to leave behind people who can carry the music on without me.
Daegeum
A large transverse bamboo flute with a buzzing membrane that gives it its rasp. The instrument of my certification, and the one I am most often engaged to play.
Danso
A short vertical bamboo flute, quiet and inexpensive. The instrument I teach, and the subject of my beginner course for the National Gugak Center.
Sogeum
The small transverse flute of the same family, an octave above the Daegeum.
Taepyeongso
A double-reed horn, loud enough to lead a procession outdoors. Used in Chwitadae.
Nabal
A long straight horn of one sustained note, sounded to open and to signal. Used in Chwitadae, and in the National Chorus of Korea's Hunminjeongeum at Lincoln Center.
Janggu
The hourglass drum, struck with a stick on one head and the palm on the other. Taught seated, it is how a whole class starts to play together.
Buk
The barrel drum. Depth beneath the Janggu, and the pulse a procession walks to.
Bak
Six blades of wood on a cord, clapped once to open a court piece and three times to close it.
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Wind and percussion on all three Korean civilization themes. What began as a Daegeum session grew to take in the Danso and the Janggu as the recording went on. Two sessions at Pinch Recording in Long Island City, produced by Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo.
The Easiest Danso Class in the World
A ten-part beginner course for the e-Gugak Academy, from making the first sound to ornamentation. Free to take.
Take the course →TOP 40 Danso & Sogeum Songbook
Forty pieces across eighty videos, each with a model performance and on-screen notation.
Watch →Danso for Teachers
A distance course for the i-Scream teacher training institute, written for classroom teachers who have to teach the Danso without having played it.
The road of sound he walks
An eight-page cover story in the November–December 2025 issue, on turning the cold wind of New York into the warmth of home with a single Daegeum. Published in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Read the feature →Before K-pop, we had the Daegeum
A filmed interview in English on Korean traditional music and the Daegeum — what the instrument is, how it is made, and why it still matters outside Korea.
Watch the interview →
Copy and paste. Please use the text as it stands — the certification title is a formal one.
Woosung Jung is a Korean traditional wind instrument player based in Ridgefield, New Jersey, and a certified holder of Daegeum Jeongak, a National Intangible Cultural Heritage of Korea. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and Jordan Hall, and recorded the Korean civilization themes for Sid Meier's Civilization VII. He directs the Meari Chwitadae and teaches Danso to Korean school teachers and students across the New York and New Jersey area.
국가무형문화유산 '대금 정악' 이수자인 정우성은 대금, 소금, 단소, 태평소 등 여러 관악기와 장구, 북과 같은 타악기를 자유롭게 넘나드는 연주자입니다. 그는 한국과 중국, 미국 시카고에서 전통 음악 연주자 및 교육자로 활동하며 단소 앙상블, 기악 앙상블, 장구 앙상블, 취타대 등을 이끌며 현지에 우리 음악을 알려왔습니다. 현재 뉴욕·뉴저지 지역을 중심으로 카네기홀, 케네디 센터, 링컨 센터, 조던 홀 등 유서 깊은 무대에서 꾸준히 관객들을 만나고 있습니다.
Woosung Jung is a Korean traditional wind instrument player and educator based in Ridgefield, New Jersey. He is a certified holder of Daegeum Jeongak, a National Intangible Cultural Heritage of Korea, and plays the Daegeum, Sogeum, Danso, Taepyeongso and Nabal, together with the percussion instruments Janggu, Buk and Bak.
He entered the National Gugak Middle School in Seoul at thirteen and continued through the National Gugak High School and Hanyang University, where he read Korean traditional music with the Daegeum as his principal instrument. He studied under Cho Chang-hoon, Sim Sang-nam, Choi Sam-beom and Hwang In-wan.
Teaching came before performing. He began training schoolteachers at the Korean Teachers' Gugak Association in 1998, while still an undergraduate, and continued at the Korean Traditional Music Institute for five years. Alongside this he worked in programme planning at the National Gugak Center, reported on concerts for KBS 1FM, and managed the Howon Art Hall in Seoul. In 2015 the Overseas Koreans Foundation sent him to four Korean-Chinese schools in Jilin and Heilongjiang, where for three years he taught the Danso and Janggu to the teachers there — and where his first Danso ensembles took shape, with children and their teachers playing side by side.
He moved to the United States in December 2018. Over five years in Chicago, as associate director of the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago, he built a Chwitadae — the Korean processional wind and percussion band — from community members, most of whom had never held an instrument. It made its debut at the Columbus Day Parade in 2019 and went on to march in the Chicago Thanksgiving Parade three years running, the first Korean Chwitadae to do so. He also founded the Soribit Danso Ensemble, the first of its kind in the United States. At the end of his first year in America he received a Commendation from Korea's Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and in 2022 a Certificate of Excellence from the Cook County Treasurer for service to the Korean American community.
Since moving to New Jersey in 2024 he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and Jordan Hall, at the Asia Society, the Korea Society and the Peabody Essex Museum, and on tour through El Salvador and Nicaragua. He has given three solo Daegeum recitals, in Chicago, New Jersey and Boston. For Sid Meier's Civilization VII he recorded the wind and percussion parts for all three Korean civilization themes, drawing on the court repertoire — Boheoja for Goryeo, the Jongmyo Jeryeak for Joseon.
He teaches at the Southern New Jersey Korean School in Cherry Hill, and online to students in six countries. His beginner Danso course for the National Gugak Center's e-Gugak Academy is free to take, and his YouTube channel, Neuru, holds more than three hundred and seventy recordings filmed close on the hands, with the notation running in the subtitles.
In July 2026 the players he had been teaching in New Jersey became the Meari Chwitadae, which he directs.
Microphones, stage width for the Chwitadae, and what is needed in every case — the full table is above.
Stage requirements ↑Performances, lessons, recordings and press.
jws7908@gmail.comFor posters, programme books and press. Click any image to see it larger, then download it — these are web-size files. Write and ask for anything not here.
