By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Kim Duk-soo, a Korean traditional percussion master, will receive the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize from Fukuoka City, Japan to acknowledge his contribution to preserving Asian culture.
The prizes are designed to award individuals or groups who contributed to the preservation and creation of Asian culture since its inception in 1990.
The Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize Committee will hold a press conference on July 23.
Kim, currently a professor of the Korean National University of Arts, was born in 1952 during the Korean War (1950-1953). He marks the 50th anniversary of his debut this year.
Kim, who majored in Korean wind instruments and ``pansori,'' or Korean traditional narrative songs in high school, debuted as a ``namsadang,'' or a member of a traveling male entertainment troupe in 1957 at the age of five, following in the footsteps of his father.
Kim is renowned as the founder of ``samulnori,'' Korean percussion music with four instruments.
The term ``samulnori'' was first coined in 1978 to describe a genre of music and to serve as the name of Korea's leading traditional performance group, which was led by Kim.