Composer Lee Geon-woo(李建雨) was born in Hosanli, Gangwon-do in 1917. He defected to North Korea in 1950 and died in Pyeongyang in 1998. He was a representative modern Korean musician. His 80 years' life witnessed the most tragic events in Korean history. His lifetime was studded with Japanese colonial rule, national division and war. Therefore, he was a musician who firsthand experienced national trials in the modern history of the Korean Peninsula. His more than 250 pieces of music composed in his lifetime were vocal solos, duets, unaccompanied choruses, cantata, choruses, orchestral music, symphonic poems, love songs, violin suites, solos (piano, cello, violin, trumpet and clarinet), string quartets, concertos and operas. Among them, there was a Korean classical song ‘Geumjandi’ which accomplished the typicality of Korean national music. All of them were created in the course of tragic life of Korean history. The reality of his life and art was the restoration of national sovereignty, anti-Japanese movement, the prevention of national division and unification based on national reality. In this vein, his standpoint of national reality presented in the expressive methods of musical language was different from those of the followers of Western modern music. His reality was national reality and always such a reality that was expressed with national music. He endlessly struggled to recover such a reality that was distorted as a nation and twisted as a human being. His struggle of life and art was music, namely national music to secure national identity. He was such a musician who realized national music by means of unifying national tradition, new tradition, Korean classical music and Western music. As a young musician, he published a symphonic poem ‘The Young’in Japan. After liberation, he composed ‘Geumjandi’and‘Nodeulgang’, thus passionately singing the beautiful land of Korea and Korean people. Furthermore, he earnestly dreamed the song of unification and eventually sang of Korean people with his work ‘Camellia’.