Jocelyn Clark, 55, from the United States, was recently named an official trainee of Jeollabuk-do Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 40 for gayageum sanjo, a traditional Korean string music form. With her chestnut hair neatly tied and accented by a Korean traditional ornamental hairpin, she appeared completely at ease in the traditional style. On Mar. 10, Clark became the first non-Korean national to be designated an intangible cultural heritage trainee in South Korea. While there have been cases of overseas Koreans receiving the title in pansori (narrative singing), Clark is the first foreign citizen to do so.
The selection process, administered by the Heritage Management Division of the North Jeolla Provincial Government, is known to be highly competitive, even for South Koreans with over a decade of training. For non-Koreans who often face long-term residency limitations, the process is even more formidable. “Many Korean applicants with more than 10 years of experience are not selected. For foreign nationals, the barriers are even higher,” the division noted.
Now a professor at the Ju SiGyeong Liberal Arts College at Pai Chai University, Clark recalled the moment she received the call. “I was hiking with fellow professors when my teacher, Master Ji Seong-ja, phoned and said, ‘It’s done! You’re in!’” she said. “I was so thrilled I could have danced on the mountain.”
Designation as an intangible cultural heritage trainee—a title awarded by either the Cultural Heritage Administration or local governments—is widely regarded as a formal entry point into South Korea’s traditional music circles and a pathway toward eventual recognition as a master. The dual-track system, operating on both national and regional levels, helps identify and elevate skilled practitioners with greater precision.
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Alaska, Clark created her Korean name, “Jo Se-rin,” on her own. “For fun, I combined the character for ‘north’ (北) with the character for ‘bird’ (鳥), pronounced ‘Jo,’” she said with a laugh. “It’s my way of saying ‘Jo from Alaska.’”
Her interest in East Asian string instruments began during her school years, when she was first introduced to Japanese music. As a high school student, she traveled between Nagoya and Tokyo to study the koto, a traditional Japanese zither. Later, at Wesleyan University, she developed a deep interest in Chinese language and calligraphy, which led her to Nanjing University of the Arts in China. There, she studied both the guqin and zheng.
“It was during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which made it extremely difficult for foreigners to even enter a music conservatory,” she said. “We had to use separate entrances. It was a truly challenging time to be a student.”
Clark’s introduction to the gayageum came later and entirely by chance. After returning to the United States from China, she met Kim Jin-hee, a geomungo player who was in the U.S. to study jazz. That encounter sparked her interest in Korean traditional instruments.
“At the time, South Korea had very limited funding for cultural promotion abroad, so information about traditional music was hard to come by,” she said. Intrigued, Clark sent a letter to the director of the National Gugak Center and was admitted as a scholarship student in 1992, beginning formal instruction in gayageum.
“I initially planned to study for just one year,” she said. “But the gayageum was so fundamentally different from both Western and other East Asian instruments in technique and aesthetics that it was impossible to master quickly. I ended up staying much longer.”
From then on, she began writing “Jo Se-rin” in Hangul instead of using katakana or Chinese characters. By 2005, she was fully immersed in Korean traditional music, even completing a doctoral dissertation at Harvard University on pansori lyrics.
To Clark, the gayageum is “an instrument that gives back as much love as you put into it.” Compared with the koto and zheng, she said, the most striking difference lies in the rhythm and the philosophy embedded in the performance. While the koto and zheng often follow Western-style 2/4 or 4/4 time signatures, the gayageum is based on a three-beat cycle, allowing for more intricate variations.
“Unlike the koto and zheng, which are mostly played solo, the gayageum is often performed with accompaniment and blends beautifully with dance,” she added. “The ability to adapt the performance to the mood and context — that’s what makes it so captivating for me.”
