The Gwangju Municipal Choir (GMC) was launched as a citizens’ choir by Professor Jang Shin-deok in 1976. It has become a major choir representing Korea, marking its 47th anniversary this year. Working with many pioneering conductors in the Korean choir history, such as Seok Bok-ryong, Kim Yeon-sul, Kim Dong-hyun, Yoo Byeong-mu, Gu Cheon, Lim Han-gwi, and Kim Yeon-jae, the GMC has held higher quality concerts in a lot of performances, including more than 190 regular concerts. Such efforts have been highly recognized by Gwangju citizens, classical music fans, and the Korean choir lovers. It has also taken the lead in cultural exchanges with other cities and provinces, such as Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, Busan, Daegu, Jeju, and Jeonju. Moreover, it has also performed overseas concerts in USA, Japan, and China, and contributed to international public relations and cultural exchanges of Gwangju. Striving to become a top-notch choir through high-quality repertoires, natural and well-blended vocalization and exuberant chorus, it has received a lot of attention and favors from the press and classical music fans, presenting fine performances at each concert. The GMC tries to make classical concerts accessible to local residents by frequently visiting them for active communication through chorus, and implements a variety of cultural projects to contribute to students’ character education.

The Gwangju CBS Children’s Choir, founded in 1985, is serving as a praise missionary spreading God’s gospel and love through more than 800 performances, including 31 regular concerts and overseas invitation concerts in 15 countries. The choir has greatly contributed to the Christian youth culture revival through children’s original opera <David> and chorus musical <Eternal Promise>, and has been engaged in active performances with various genres of music. The choir has won the group championship with the Grand Prize and Conductor’s Award in the Yantai-Penglai Asia-Pacific International Chorus & Solo Arts Festival, and also won the Gold Prize in the Daekyo Chorus Korea Competition. The choir is making efforts to spread joyful and hopeful messages to weary and tired people through gracious and moving choruses and to become a wonderful choir through systematic chorus and character education.

The Klang Symphony Orchestra (K.S.O.), composed of young musicians in Gwangju, is a professional performance group that has actively participated in the local culture and arts since 2018. As the meaning of the name Klang, the K.S.O. provides friendly and comforting music to the audience through clean tones and classical interpretation of music, and has been steadily growing with favorable reviews at each concert.
The K.S.O. has performed more than four operas every year since its performance with the Gwangju Metropolitan Orchestra in 2018 and has been recognized for its artistic competence. The K.S.O. is also offering opportunities for people to enjoy classical music by planning visiting concerts, school and house concerts, and talk concerts with ensembles composed of various instruments, not only wind and string instruments but also percussion.

The Gwangju Metropolitan Opera was founded in 2017 to enhance the status of Gwangju as a cultural hub of Asia and to gratify citizens’ desire for culture and arts. Enabling citizens to become subjects of arts and making a cultural and artistic path for musical talents, artists, and performance experts, it is expanding the base of Korean opera, advancing to a wide range of opera genres. The Gwangju Metropolitan Opera will continue to create Gwangju's unique operas together with citizens to introduce the excellence of its culture and arts to the world.