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| ▲ This photo, provided by Kim Hwa-jong, shows the guitarist. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by Fingerpicking Associates Japan, shows the winner of the 'Morris Fingerpicking Day 2023.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Mar. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korean fingerstyle guitarist Kim Hwa-jong, 29, has taken home two gold medals at the International Guitar Festival hosted by the Japan-based guitar brand Morris.
Fingerstyle guitar refers to the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to Flatpicking.
Kim won the Excellence Award for second place as well as the Audience Evaluation Award at the “Morris Fingerpicking Day 2023,” which was held at Akaren Gasoko in Japan on Saturday (local time).
“I was so nervous as I was playing at a prestigious competition that has returned after a long hiatus. I am now so proud of myself that I have made some good outcomes,” the guitarist said in a telephone interview with Yonhap News Agency.
The “Morris Fingerpicking Day,” which marked its very first in 2001, has been deemed as a representative competition that holds the final round in Japan for those who have gone through the preliminaries in their homelands. Categories for the competition include playing guitar and composing.
The face-to-face competition was held after four years since 2019 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. South Korean guitarist Kim Young-so was the first-ever foreigner to win the competition in 2019, and Chinese guitarist Wang Ye-min was named the winner of this year’s competition.
Kim, who was born and raised in the city of Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province, is a graduate of the Seoul Jazz Academy. He formerly won the grand prize at the 2019 Cortek Cultural Foundation’s Acoustic Guitar Competition and also touched down in second place at the American Fingerstyle Collective Guitar Festival.
The guitarist also took home the grand prize in the composing and singer-songwriting category at the last year’s Kyunghyang Practical Music Competition.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Ha eun Lee)
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