Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) Department of Korean Music has become a prolific source of Presidential Award winners at the country's leading gugak competitions.

Kim Mi-sook (Class of 1988, age 43), an alumna of the Department of Korean Music, won the highest honor, the Presidential Award, at the recently held 39th Chunhyang Gugak Competition, which selects the nation's most prestigious master vocalists.

With Kim Mi-sook's Presidential Award, the Department of Korean Music has the distinction of having won the Presidential Award for the twentieth time.

The reason JBNU's Department of Korean Music has been sweeping Presidential Awards at the country's leading gugak competitions is that, since the department's founding in 1988, it has provided systematic education that institutionalizes the excellence and universality of traditional music through both theory and practice.

In particular, supported by university-level efforts to cultivate the most Korean campus, the department is doing its utmost to train gugak professionals who will lead the next generation through the professionalization and specialization of arts education and various programs linked to new media fields such as dance-drama, acting, and video.

At the Chunhyang Gugak Competition, Kim performed the passage 'Simbongsa Weeping Beside Tarubi' from the pansori Simcheongga in the finals of the Pansori Master Vocalist division, receiving a score of 99 from the judges.

Judge Lee Im-rae, who served on this competition's panel, praised, "Master Kim possesses the high, middle, and low registers," adding, "The sound of Simbongsa, holding his deceased daughter in his heart and wailing at his wife's grave, moved me to tears."

Kim, who served as a member of the Jeonbuk Provincial Gugak Orchestra and as a principal member of the Daejeon Yeonjeong Gugak Cultural Center and now works as an advisor, said, "I feel constantly sorry to my husband and children for not being sufficiently devoted to my family. I am grateful to my family for their patience and support. I will become a greater person and repay them through this award."

A graduate of JBNU's Department of Korean Music, Kim studied under masters Lee Il-ju, Cho Tong-dal, and Min So-wan, who is a designated cultural asset of Jeollabuk-do. In 1997, she won the student-division pansori championship at the Jeonju Daesaseup Nori; in 1997, she received the Encouragement Award in the master vocalist pansori division at the Jeonju Daesaseup Nori; in 1998, she won the Prime Minister's Prize in the master vocalist pansori division at the Jongno National Gugak Competition; and in 2011 she was awarded the runner-up in the master vocalist pansori division at the Jeonju Daesaseup Nori.