May 4, 2006
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The National Museum for Women in the Arts has the young Ahn piano trio on the bill, which is good news for our gray and stolid town. You couldn’t build a more delectable group if you had a warehouse full of parts – the Ahn are sisters, more or less in their twenties, more or less drop-dead gorgeous, who popped out of Julliard a few years ago and have been sexing up concert halls ever since.  So I pried myself away from a fascinating evening of editing and went down to have a listen.

First off:  you have to salute the Ahn -- they’ve been bringing people into concert halls who would normally put a nail through their hand before submitting to classical music.  But let’s use the term “classical” loosely – the Ahn are aggressively non-pointy-headed, and the stuff on their “Ahn-plugged” tour  (steel yourself for relentless punning) is as accessible as corn flakes and about as nutritious.

Cause girls just wanna have fun, as the philosophers tell us, and that’s what the Ahn happily admit to dealing in. A little warmed-over Chick Corea, some cutesified Jim Morrison, a classical-lite tone-poem from  composer (and Ahn chum) Kenji Bunch, a warm but nuance-challenged account of My Funny Valentine – it all made for a pleasant, risk-free evening, not without its moments, but that left your attention wandering.

Like, inevitably, to the sisters themselves.  Violinist Angella, the baby of the family, is also clearly the brains – not to mention the most musically acute – and the most naturally elegant. She's the band's good girl, natch.  Cellist Maria plays off her as the tough, smoldering bad one – you can almost see a cigarette hanging off her lip as she plays.  And pianist Lucia is the bouncy flouncy girly-girl, flirting with her piano without actually, you know, consummating anything.

So, take your pick.  Think I'll just stick with the Beaux Arts for now.

(Daniel Ginsberg reviewed the concert for the Post; neither he nor Charles T. Downey over at Ionarts  had much use for the concert, either; read Charles' expansive take on it here.)