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Have you tried to listen to Korean traditional music? For many of you, K-pop may sound familiar, but it may be the opposite for Korean traditional music. Now, people are increasingly paying attention to new pop music, but as a result, traditional music is almost ignored. There is a Korean group that is trying to break this wall and attract people to listen to Korean traditional music.

Oriental Express plays a new breed of fusion music, a blending of various genres of music such as Korean traditional music, jazz, and music technology. The band was formed in 2004 and has six members – Choi Young-joon (leader; keyboard; composer), Kim Hyun-jong (drums), Kim Hyun-mo (Bass), Park Kyung-so (Gayageum), Chun Ji-yoon (Haegeum), and Kim Dae-seung (Guitar). They all have strong musical backgrounds and three of them are professors at different universities. They have released three albums since 2006.

Through those three albums, Oriental Express has tried to present an extraordinary and unique music which incorporates various rhythmical beats such as jazz, rock, latin, funk, disco, and even electric sound into Korean-style melodies.

In addition to creating and expanding a new kind of music performance, they’ve also worked hard to develop software and hardware programs that they can use for their performances. They have made electric gayageum, i-haegeum, i-janggu, and now are working on expanding out to a Korean software synthesizer.

Synthesizing various different Western music techniques with Korean traditional melodies will make it easier to enjoy for those people who are not familiar with Korean traditional music.