AHN TRIO's TOP TEN MOST ASKED QUESTIONS answered from the past.
Q: How do you plan on making classical music more mainstream?
By remembering that it always has been mainstream. By remembering that Mozart was the Justin Timberlake of his time. Many classical music composers were so ahead of their time. For example, Debussy didn’t understand Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” at its premiere performance. That once 'Sarabande' was banned because it was considered too sensual and erotic. We like classical music for its constant yearning for something newer, something more innovative, something more modern while we also love the wide range of its influences that are evident in its past literature. We should celebrate all aspects of classical music and not be afraid to break out of a box, because that was never part of what classical music is about.
Q: How would you like listeners to classify your music?
We don’t want anyone to classify our music. We would rather they simply love our music for what it is. Trying to define modern classical music is like trying to define modern art.
Q: What led you all down a musical path?
Lucia saw a piano in the kindergarten and begged our mother for a year if she could get piano lessons to learn to play the piano. Once she started Angella and Maria also wanted to learn to play an instrument, but not the same.
Q. Did you dream of becoming a Trio?
While we were all at Juilliard, we never imagined becoming the “Ahn Trio.” You never dream of working with your sisters your whole life! Then the late great New York manager Harold Shaw signed us, and Chesky Records made our first album. And now we have our fifth album, “Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac”, with Sony. We always thought we may end up in three different continents doing three very different things musically, now we're only able to do that for vacations, sometimes! Because we tour all year together, we often joke that we're not keen on sharing anything with eachother except our music, our mother, stage and food.
Q: Were your parents musicians?
We don’t come from a family of musicians, but our parents were very much interested in the arts and took us to many concerts, exhibits and dance concerts. Our mother is a writer and our father is a businessman.
Q: Who were some of your influences growing up?
One always admires one’s parents. Ours lived through a war and its aftermath, knocked the dust off, stood up tall, and became successful people. Our mother in particular forged new pathways and opportunities for women in Korea, which took a great deal of courage and self-esteem. Some others:
Maria: Jacqueline du Pre and Rostropovich’s recordings and Myung Wha Chung, Yo Yo Ma, David Bowie, Modonna, Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Angella says that as a little girl, her personal musical hero was Kyung-Wha Chung and also David Oistrakh, Michael Rabin, Yehudi Menuhin, Stephane Grappelli.
Lucia: Rubinstein, Argerich, Glenn Gould, Radu Lupu and Keith Jarrett
Q: Explain your album, "Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac"
“lullabies fit for 21st Century insomniacs.”
Every century has its own distinctive style of classical music, and our album reflects classical music in the 21st Century which, of course, is influenced by all different types of music in this modern era. We live in New York City and can't help but be inspired by all the exciting new music and art around us. Incorporating these elements feels like an entirely organic progression to us. We don't purposely set out to be rebellious, musically.
Lullabies are traditionally very simple and beautiful melodies that are small yet powerful in their emotional content. A mother's love translated in a lullaby-her love for a child is incomparable. In every culture this element is the same. We started by choosing lullaby-worthy material and then did 'modern classical' treatments of them which for us meant creating something edgy but at the same time minimalistic since lullabies should always be simple. “Primarily our ingredients were our acoustic instruments with some very, very subtle electronica elements and a few non-classical singers.”
Lullaby for my Favorite Insomniac is “a reflective yet impulsive album”, just a concept we wanted to explore, and it is very personal because it is the first album where we were involved in the whole production.
Q: Define each other in two words:
Pianist Lucia : true bohemian
Violinist Angella : charming spokesperson
Cellist Maria : quintessential artist
Q. Do you fight?
absolutely.
Q. Who wins?
We take turns. Each of us has time periods where one rules the other two and our dynamics constantly change in the group which makes it interesting.
Q. Favorite place where you have performed?
Hm, that's like asking us what would be our favorite dish in Korean food, it changes all the time. Too many to choose from,Beijing, Istanbul, St. Louis, Prague, Carribbean Islands, Mexico, Sweden, Hawaii, Italy.we love them all. If the audience is great, it could be anywhere and we have a great experience.
Watch the CNN.com Feature on Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac
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Born in Seoul, Korea and educated at the Juilliard in New York City, the members of the Ahn Trio, (cellist Maria, pianist Lucia, and violinist Angella), are constantly redefining the art and architecture of chamber music. Breathing new life into the standard piano-trio literature with commissioned works from visionary composers such as Michael Nyman, Maurice Jarre, Pat Metheny, Paul Schoenfield, Mark O' Connor, Kenji Bunch, Nikolai Kapustin, and Paul Chihara, the Ahn Trio brings a new energy and excitement to the chamber music world. The trio's latest CD, “Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac” (released by Sony), is a showcase of this vibrant and original music, which made No. 8 on the Billboard Charts for 26 weeks in the Classical album category.
The trio has been touring successfully for over ten years and have six albums to date. Their first album, a recording of Ravel and Villa-Lobos trios brought rave reviews, with Audio Magazine praising "this is one of Ravel's best and never better played". The next EMI recording of trios by Dvorak, Suk, and Shostakovich, won Germany's prestigious ECHO Award. An MTV appearance on Bryan Adams' "Unplugged" led to the development of the "Ahn- Plugged" and “Groovebox” albums (EMI), which embodies the excitement and energy of the Ahn Trio. Seeking complete artistic freedom, the trio formed their own production company named L.A.M.P., (Lucia Angella Maria Productions), which self-produced “Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac”. Their latest project was a joint album with the Czech Grammy-winning Tata Bojs called “Smetana” (Warner).
?Maria, Lucia and Angella thrive on dissolving the barriers between art forms. They have fused their work with that of dancers, pop singers, DJ's, painters, installation artists, photographers, lighting designers, ecologists, and even kite makers. The Ahns enjoyed their successful collaboration with the David Parsons Dance Company, which toured extensively to critical acclaim. More recently, they performed in the Czech Republic with rock group the Tata Bojs to sold-out shows. This year, the Trio is very excited to add to their repertoire “March of the Gypsy Fiddler”, a Triple Concerto written for them by Mark O'Connor. The Ahns frequently enjoy having guest artists join them on stage, recent favorites include the Kin, a two-brother rock band from Australia, as well as electronic music artist Juno a.k.a Superdrive from Berlin. It is precisely this vitality and commitment to innovation that has Ahn Trio continually drawing new audiences to classical music.
Possessing an enviable combination of talent and style, they have long been natural subjects for the international press. They made their magazine premiere very early on, in Time's cover story, 'Asian American Whiz Kids'. Since then, they have gone on to frequent fashion pages of the likes of Vogue and GQ, photographed by such luminary photographers as Arthur Elgort, Ellen von Unwerth, and Walter Chin, and been featured in ad campaigns for GAP, Anne Klein and Bodyshop, among others. In 2003, they were named three of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.
The Ahn Trio is in high demand, performing and leading master classes and workshops across the United States and around the world. Whether they are playing in Vienna's Musikverein, New York's Lincoln Center, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, Beijing's Concert Hall, Istanbul's Aya Irini in Topkapi Palace, or for 10,000 screaming fans at the World Music Festival in the Czech Republic, they share their innovative spirit and ever-evolving vision of music.
Here is what their favorite composers say about them:
PAT METHENY “Their willingness to play new music at such a high level is an inspiring and exciting quality that will continue to define the unique spot that they are carving for themselves in the music world.”
MICHAEL NYMAN “My all-time favorite piano trio with a rare passion for new music.”
MAURICE JARRE “Their choice and their taste make the repertoire of trio more interesting.”
NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN “I became somewhat tired of 19th century music, preferable are either Sebastian Bach or Ahn Trio.”
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