[ MAUKA MAKAI ]
The family that plays together, stays together: from left to right, sisters Lucia, Maria and Angella Ahn.
Ahn & Ahn & Ahn Lucia Ahn was just a kindergartner when she told her mother she wanted to learn to play the piano. So she was given lessons, along with twin sister Maria and younger sister Angella. But Lucia's sisters became jealous over how well she was playing, so they informed Mom that they wanted to play different instruments. Maria picked up the cello and Angella the violin. And music lovers have to thank Mrs. Ahn for being so agreeable.
The Ahn Trio is coming to Honolulu
Trio has 'MTV style' appealing to students
Oct. 21 to help celebrate Korean pride
Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comSuch is the simple origin of the Ahn Trio. The trio made its first public ensemble appearance on South Korean television in 1979. After the family emigrated to the United States two years later, the sisters enrolled in and graduated from the prestigious Juilliard music school, and today are in-demand, world-class performers.
After making their reputation as a classically styled piano trio, the sisters now are working to bring a fresh and innovative attitude to contemporary classical music, with a look to match.
They'll be here Oct. 21 to help celebrate the centennial anniversary of Korean immigration to Hawaii, playing a pair of concerts for both school and general audiences. The trio will be performing selections from its upcoming CD on EMI Classics, "Groovebox," which, coincidentally, will be released nationally the day after the concerts here.
IT WAS OBVIOUS when the three were just kids that their musical talents would transcend any sibling rivalry.
"Lucia was 7 at the time when she seriously started playing piano," Maria Ahn said by phone from her New York City home. "I took up the cello when I was 8, and Angella was 6 1/2 when she started on the violin.
"This all started off very innocently. We had a lot of fun with the music. Our mom deserves a lot of credit because she didn't force us to play music. And our teachers were very encouraging, saying, 'You're really good at it.'"
Flash forward to after the family emigrated to the United States, and even though the three of them excelled as musicians, they never thought they would play together at a professional level.
"We thought we would go our separate ways, and I would be a cello player apart from my sisters," Ahn said. "The thought only came to us when we were asked to perform as a trio while we were at Juilliard.
"Obviously, it's a huge plus that we know each other so well, to really develop this close relationship as we tour together, where the music brings out this mutual bond we have. It makes it more enjoyable, to share the music between us and the audience."
Ah, but they are sisters after all, and there is the occasional familial disagreement.
"Sometimes there is a disadvantage playing with your sisters," Ahn admits. "Whereas playing with a colleague in an ensemble, I'd be more polite in voicing my opinions, with family, you take (them) for granted.
"But the three of us have a working relationship -- we have to, in order to survive as a performing trio. Personalitywise, we're so different from each other that we're never bored with each other. In fact, I think we'd be more competitive if we were more similar in temperament.
"Since we're such three different people, we give each other space whenever we can. But the musical chemistry we share is definitely a plus. We're now at the point in our performing that we do a lot of spontaneous things on the spot in concert, since we know and respond to each other so well."
THE SISTERS got a contract to record as a trio as soon as they graduated from Juilliard. They were brought to the attention of a wider American audience in a 1987 story in Time magazine about "Asian-American Whiz Kids." The trio's first two recordings -- one containing the work of Ravel and Villa-Lobos, the other consisting of Dvorak, Suk and Shostakovich trios -- won critical raves for them. Their continuing career as a "proper" classical chamber piano trio seemed a certainty.
Then came "Ahn-Plugged," an eclectic collection of works that ranged from Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla's "Oblivion" and an early Leonard Bernstein trio composition from 1937 to more current pieces by Kenji Bunch and Michael Nyman, who arranged his "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" (from his film score for "The Piano") specifically for them. The trio also does an intriguing, layered and languorous rendition of "This Is Not America," a David Bowie-Pat Metheny collaboration first heard on the 1985 "The Falcon and the Snowman" soundtrack.
The title "Ahn-Plugged" has become the overall title for their performances that concentrate on contemporary classical music, and the one they'll be bringing to Honolulu.
"There won't be any standard classical pieces in the 'Ahn-Plugged' program," a lively and engaging concert, Angella Ahn emphasized by phone from her boyfriend's home in Montana. "Even though we still do classical programs and traditional pieces, we just recorded the 'Groovebox' CD, and it represents a new philosophy of music we've just felt recently.
"We feel it's important to embrace modern composers or composers that are contemporaries of ours -- people like Maurice Jarre (legendary film composer and the man who wrote the "Dr. Zhivago" score) and friends like Kenji Bunch, who's young and energetic. Working with composers like these two are really, really important to us. And our listeners seem to appreciate this new direction of ours.
"This kind of music represents the way we live now, what the world is now, an international feel with the old and new mixing, an exciting time of fusion.
"I admit that whenever you start anything, like a career in classical music, you have to conform," she said. "We were young musicians just out of Juilliard, and we were a little scared and nervous, and didn't want to offend purists. But we've grown as musicians and people, and part of that growth process is becoming braver and perhaps a little more stubborn, to do what we want to do. The people who 'get us' really appreciate and relate to what we're doing."
As for the "Ahn-Plugged" tag, that was partly inspired by Maria and Angella's participation in the taping of an "MTV Unplugged" show featuring Bryan Adams. Their occasional forays into rock music continue with the "Groovebox" album and their upcoming Honolulu appearance, at which they'll perform an arrangement of Bowie's glam classic "Ziggy Stardust."
"We're such big fans of Bowie!" Angella enthused. "I dream of us doing an all-Bowie cover album one day."
The trio will also be doing a particularly inspired version of the Doors' "Riders on the Storm."
"We were thinking of how to create the storm sound effects that you hear in the opening of the original," Angella said. "We tried to create every organic sound we could think of on our instruments, because it would've been too easy to build a tremolo from soft to loud. It was only when Maria was playing with her dogs with a tennis ball, and the sound the piano made when the ball bounced on its strings, that we found a way to re-create the storm."
The showcase composition will be Bunch's "Swing Shift: Music for Evening Hours."
"Kenji wrote it to describe the New York City nightlife," Angella said, "the hours between dusk and dawn. He wrote the piece for us and dedicated it to those who work in establishments that are open all night long. It's like program music, shifting from the late-night stores, the noise of the clubs and the quiet times that represent the quintessential loneliness of the city."
IT'S the east side of New York City that the Ahns call home.
"We actually live close to each other," Lucia said. "When we were younger, we wanted to stay separate from each other's lives, but as we've grown and matured, we are three sisters, after all, and we usually end up hanging out with the same set of friends."
"The idea of combining music and career straight out of school, and doing 40 concerts in two months' time, isn't for us anymore," Angella said. "Now we make it a point of taking at least two months of the year off and do things apart from each other. Working with your sisters sometimes makes you crazy!"
But, overall, Angella said, they consider themselves "spoiled and ... very lucky all our lives, taking it all for granted." They're looking forward to performing for the first time as a trio in Honolulu in a couple of weeks.
"I love it there," said Angella. "I've been there three times and have good friends there.
"We'll be coming from our South Korean tour. It's always pretty special to play in our former home country. We do have a lot of pride in our culture -- and didn't our soccer team do well at the World Cup!
"And our family on our mother's side gets to see us and see how we've grown all these years, even though our favorite grandma still treats us like we're still 10 years old, patting all of us on the head! But that's an especially nice feeling."
Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall The Ahn Trio
When: 7 p.m. Oct. 21, with a special, abbreviated 11 a.m. program that same day for school students
Tickets: $27, $32, $42 and $57 for the evening performance; $15 for the student program
Call: 526-4400 or 536-1539
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The Ahn Trio always make it a point to present special concerts and workshops for students during their tours, and Honolulu is no exception. While possible side trips to local schools are still in the works, there will be a special 11 a.m. performance for students Oct. 21. Trio has ‘MTV style’
appealing to studentsBy Gary Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comIt's one eagerly anticipated by both students and teachers.
"We're going to see them to give the kids a different view of classical music," said Derek Suzuki, orchestra and choir director at Moanalua Middle School. "They give it that MTV style and make it more accessible for the kids. They're young and have a flair to them."
And as music has benefited the lives of the Ahn sisters, Suzuki sees the same possibilities for his charges.
"Music education helps increase grades, improves study habits and also the intangibles like nonacademic discipline, fostering leadership abilities and teamwork. This is all project-based learning, and the great thing about performing concerts themselves is that they're projects as well. Music must have a performance, and the interaction between parents and kids can become strong."
Brandon Correa, director of strings at the all-girl St. Andrew's Priory, said the three young women are great role models.
"There's a dynamic to them -- three sisters who have made it in a still male-dominated business -- and I want my students to have that direct contact with women who have made it on their terms. Yes, you have to be good and talented musically, but to include that whole business side, it takes an incredible amount of discipline, to work that hard, to be that good in marketing yourself. Now that is something.
"It's also inspirational to see Asians perfecting and marketing a Western style of music, because in Hawaii we have that dynamic and the ability to tap into that connection to the East.
"I hope something like this will build in my students a foundation in music that's based on the enjoyment of playing -- not just for advancement or a means of showing off, but to share something beautiful and to develop some character by working and practicing hard, with a determination to succeed."
By Gary C.W. Chun
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