Ahn Trio Photos Biography Reviews
Angella Ahn, violin Maria Ahn, cello Lucia Ahn, piano Born in Seoul, Korea, and educated at Juilliard in New York City, the members of the Ahn Trio — sisters Maria, Lucia, and Angella — are redefining the art and architecture of chamber music, breathing new life into the standard piano trio literature with commissioned works from visionary composers like Pat Metheny, Kenji Bunch, Maurice Jarre, Nikolai Kapustin and Michael Nyman. The trio’s latest CD, Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac (recorded by their own label, L.A.M.P.) made No.8 on the Billboard charts in the U.S. and the special edition release is now available on RCA Red Seal label.
Lucia, Angella, and Maria thrive on dissolving the barriers between art forms. They have fused their work with that of dancers, pop singers, DJ’s, electronic music artists, painters, installation artists, photographers, lighting designers, ecologists, and even kite makers and received critical acclaim for their collaborative project with the David Parsons Dance Company in the past. This summer, the Ahns were the only Classical group to be invited to perform at the iTunes LIVE Festival in London where Michael Nyman was a surprise guest performing with the delighted Ahns (the live recordings are available on iTunes UK). Also in recent news, the success of their live performance at the Czech Grammys with the Tata Bojs (award-winning Czech rockband) led to the Ahns’ recording a collaborative album Smetana with the Tata Bojs.
The Ahns have just returned from a sold-out CD-release tour in the Czech Republic. This winter, the Ahns performed a China premiere of Kenji Bunch’s Hardware Concerto (triple concerto written for them) with the China National Symphony Orchestra. They also performed their Chinese and Korean premieres of Pat Metheny’s Yu-Ryung, a work Mr. Metheny wrote for the trio. Next year, the Ahns will premiere Mark O’Conner’s Triple Concerto as well as Nikolai Kapustin’s second trio (Mr. Kapustin wrote his first and only trio for the Ahns). These are some of the award-winning composers writing for the trio at the moment.
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.” They have gone on to frequent fashion pages the likes of Vogue and GQ. In 2003, they were named three of People Magazine‘s 50 Most Beautiful People. Their first recording of Ravel and Villa-Lobos trios, brought raves, such as Audio Magazine‘s ”…this is one of Ravel’s best and never better played…” and the next, an EMI recording of by Dvorak, Suk, and Shostakovich, won Germany’s prestigious ECHO Award.
The Ahn Trio is in high demand, performing and leading master classes and workshops across the United States and around the world. Wherever the Ahns go, they share their innovative spirit and ever-evolving vision of music. It is precisely this vitality and commitment to innovation that has the Ahn Trio continually drawing new audiences to classical music.