My dissertation investigates the contradiction and ambivalence of preserving traditional music, called kugak, in the face of globalization in South Korea. The research focuses on the continuing discourse about music and identity as well as Koreans' ideas about Korean values in music. I note how globalized music has become a vessel for the expression of Korean identity, concerned about the nation, region, and world. I also argue that the meaning of a nation's traditional music and its aesthetic values have long been changed and constructed in reaction to transnational or global forces, rather than the music being merely an inherited set of sounds.

Ethnographic research is the primary methodology used in this study, which also includes fieldwork and tape-recorded interviews. By looking at the two most recent and remarkable happenings in the kugak field—the first and only independent college of kugak, and an innovative government-sponsored music band, Sorea—this dissertation explores the roles and voices of people involved in musical change and continuity.

The opening chapter examines the socio-historical background of kugak as the nation's music. Chapter two looks at how Sorea has transformed old music, revitalized tradition, and recovered "local" music. Chapter three asserts the multiple voices of the planners, producers, musicians, and audience members of Sorea, paying attention to their different views in constructing kugak in relation to their continual assessment of national sentiments. Chapter four analyzes the patterns and role models for how kugak is processed and developed in College education.

Ethnographic, historical, and analytical in its approach, this research suggests that the meanings and identity of Korean music, including its "authentic Korean values" and "traditional aesthetics," are invented and negotiated through musical activities that are now justified as the "globalization of kugak." The ideas of national, Asian, and the world's music are overlapping and compatible in Korea's traditional music and its development.