Visiting musicians share unique style

Buena Vista Univeristy (BVU) students were treated to a unique musical performance on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in Schaller Memorial Chapel for the final cultural ACES of the semester. The Ahn Trio, a chamber music group comprised of three Juilliard-trained sisters, performed with the help of The Kin, an independent rock band of two brothers.

The Ahn sisters, born in Seoul, South Korea, have been touring the world for over 10 years. Pianist Lucia, cellist Maria, and violinist Angella have collaborated with groups and individuals ranging from dance troupes, pop singers, and DJ’s, to painters, ecologists, and kite makers.

Though the instrumentation of The Ahn Trio is limited to three traditional instruments, this does not mean the music they perform is anything simple or ordinary. They use interesting techniques ranging from thumping and plucking the strings of the cello, to to bouncing a tennis ball on the strings of the piano to simulate the sounds of a storm.

The Ahn Trio performed alone for the first half of the concert, entertaining audiences with two large pieces. The first, a composition written for the group by Kenji Bunch, showed the group’s ability to play incredibly diverse styles of music.

The first movement, “Slip Jig,” resembled an Irish folk song, while the second movement, “Sarabande,” is based on a baroque-style dance. “Backstep,” the third section, was a tribute to Appalachian folk dances.

“Waltz,” as the name suggests, was an adaptation of a waltz, but with a modern twist added in. The final movement, entitled “Disco Boogie,” was a unique instrumental interpretation of the underappreciated disco music of the 1970s.

Composed by Pat Metheny, the second piece, “Yu Ryung,” was written for the Trio in 2008. The song, whose title is in Korean, is meant to evoke the image of Seoul.

After a brief intermission, the Trio welcomed Thorry and Issac Koren of The Kin onstage to accompany them on vocals and guitar. The Koren brothers, originally from Adelaide, Australia, have been performing together since 2003 when they wrote a song as a wedding present for their father. Moving to New York City shortly after, the brothers, now as The Kin, began touring their unique brand of two-part harmony across the country.

Though The Ahn Trio’s performance had been captivating by itself, the addition of the Koren brothers’ vocals and guitar added a whole new layer of depth to the music. Most of the pieces that The Kin added their flair to were adaptations of selections from The Ahn’s latest CD, Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac, whose title is a reference to the mother of the sisters. The brothers truly got to shine when The Ahn Trio joined them for an arrangement of The Kin’s song entitled “Romeo” from their album Rise and Fall.

The completely different styles and musical backgrounds of the two groups might lead people to expect that a combination of the two would sound ill-fitting, but they mesh incredibly well to form a complex and interesting musical performance.