Crown Haitai Confectionery announced on the 3rd that it held a national competition to discover traditional music talents at the Crown Haitai Hall in Namsan, Seoul. This is to support the preservation and development of traditional music.
According to Crown Haitai Confectionery, this competition was held over two days on the 1st with the '16th Hanum Dream Tree Competition' and on the 2nd with the '13th Gather Hanum Talents Competition.'
The 16th Hanum Dream Tree Competition, held this year, featured personal performances from over 200 participants in 19 institutional sectors, including wind instruments (haegeum, daegeum, piri, taepyeongso) and string instruments (gayageum, geomungo, ajaeng). In the lower elementary category, student Kim Do-eun (Pohang Jungang Elementary School) won in the folk song section, while in the upper elementary category, student Kim Hyun-jun (Gwangju Salesian Elementary School) received the grand prize. In the newly established middle school category, student Sung Min-ji (National Gugak Middle School) won the highest honor in the gayageum section. Additionally, 85 participants received awards, including gold and silver medals, along with prize money totaling over 40 million won.
The 13th Gather Hanum Talents Competition featured 11 teams that won grand prizes in institutional sectors such as dance (court, folk, Korean) and performance (sitting, standing, mask dance, traditional percussion) participating in the finals. The overall grand prize (Minister of Education award) went to 'Children Reflecting Our Sound' (Gyeongsan Elementary School, Yeongcheong Dongbu Elementary School) for their performance of 'Sujecheon' in the orchestral section. Including the overall grand prize, 700 million won in prize money and certificates were awarded across five categories: institutional sector grand prize, excellence awards, educator awards, and encouragement awards.
The traditional music talents discovered in this competition will participate in the country's largest corporate-sponsored traditional music performance, 'Changsin Festival,' and in the 'Young Talents Hanum Meeting,' held weekly at the Crown Haitai Hall in Namsan, which is a dream stage for Hanum talents. A representative from Crown Haitai Confectionery said, "This is a meaningful competition to meet the future masters of traditional music ahead of time," and noted, "We plan to take an interest and support the dreams of the Hanum talents to come true."