{"id":349012,"date":"2025-12-18T04:21:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T04:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/ambient-music\/ahn-trio-ensemble-plays-laurie-spiegel-2025-maria-ahn-music-avant-music-news\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T04:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T04:21:35","slug":"ahn-trio-ensemble-plays-laurie-spiegel-2025-maria-ahn-music-avant-music-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=349012","title":{"rendered":"Ahn Trio Ensemble \u2013 Plays Laurie Spiegel (2025; Maria Ahn Music) \u2013 Avant Music News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"120\" style=\"position: relative; display: block; width: 100%; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/track=79676845\/album=1216917194\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not even two full steps from this EP back to Charles Ives. One of Laurie Spiegel\u2019s best-loved pieces is titled <em>The Unquestioned Answer<\/em>, a response of sorts to Ives\u2019s 1908 chamber work, <em>The Unanswered Question<\/em>. Ives was preoccupied with the big-picture philosophizing of the Transcendentalists\u2013hence Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcotts popping up in his Concord Sonata.<\/p>\n<p>While Ives contemplated what it all meant (and accepted that he couldn\u2019t know), Spiegel\u2019s cheeky response is more direct, yet with a healthy dose of irony. The cover of her 1980 album, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/lauriespiegel.bandcamp.com\/album\/the-expanding-universe\">The Expanding Universe<\/a><\/em>, prints a Q&amp;A session with the composer. It begins, \u201cHow would you describe your music?\u201d She answers: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t.\u201d One implication, I think, is that music\u2013especially in her milieu in the 1970s and 1980s\u2013carried with it a lot of misguided assumptions. Rigorous composition <em>could<\/em> be for electronic instruments. Modern music <em>didn\u2019t<\/em> need to be atonal. Heck, a woman could be a serious composer.<\/p>\n<p>Spiegel\u2019s quips\u2013that she wouldn\u2019t describe her music, that it was written for record players, and more\u2013offer an ethos that many ambient musicians have embraced. Certainly, <em>The Expanding Universe<\/em> is a key work in the ambient canon. She pioneered many computer-based techniques when Ableton was still generations away. Even if <em>The Unquestioned Answer<\/em> doesn\u2019t sound like Ives, you can see why she might identify with America\u2019s most famous outsider composer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ahntrioensemble.bandcamp.com\/album\/ahn-trio-ensemble-plays-laurie-spiegel\"><em>The Ahn Trio Ensemble Plays Laurie Spiegel<\/em><\/a> continues that dialogue with an unexpected twist. Spiegel wrote most of her other signature works for electronic instruments. The Ahns are classical musicians with a traditional background. <em>The Unquestioned Answer<\/em> becomes a solo vehicle for (acoustic) piano. Still not exactly Ivesian, but a step back in that direction.<\/p>\n<p>Scored for piano and cello (the Ahn Trio Ensemble is, on this EP, a sister-act duo), Spiegel becomes a bit less ambient. Given the limitations of humans and their instruments, there are fewer details for the composer to control. But the very physicality of performance\u2013the contact with each piano key, the scrape of the bow\u2013puts an accent on every note that prevents these versions of the music from fading into the background.<\/p>\n<p>To some Spiegel devotees, that might be a drawback. For the composer herself, I suspect, it\u2019s just different. One of the pieces here, <em>Island Of Peace<\/em>, was written for the Ahns. There is no sign that the performers are meant to minimize that vitality, or to play in any way \u201cambient-like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the first time, then, Spiegel\u2019s <em>notes<\/em> are front and center. Each piece is built from one or two, simple, tonal phrases. <em>The Unquestioned Answer<\/em> has a clear tonal center but no indication of major or minor. <em>A Fall Afternoon<\/em>, for solo cello, begins like a Bach suite but only grudgingly develops. There are resemblances to Philip Glass. Unlike Glass, though, Spiegel seems content to remain modest, whether in duration, instrumentation, or dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>That modesty serves the music well, even if it has held back Spiegel\u2019s popularity. Among a niche crowd of old-school ambient heads, her legacy is secure. The Ahns have taken a valuable step to put her vision in front of a wider audience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s not even two full steps from this EP back to Charles Ives. One of Laurie Spiegel\u2019s best-loved pieces is titled The Unquestioned Answer, a response of sorts to Ives\u2019s 1908 chamber work, The Unanswered Question. Ives was preoccupied with the big-picture philosophizing of the Transcendentalists\u2013hence Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcotts popping up in his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":349013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12031],"tags":[88166,13894,23610,27649,6459,1238,1820,46208,117957,3122],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-349012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient-music","tag-ahn","tag-avant","tag-ensemble","tag-laurie","tag-maria","tag-music","tag-news","tag-plays","tag-spiegel","tag-trio"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ahn Trio Ensemble \u2013 Plays Laurie Spiegel (2025; Maria Ahn Music) \u2013 Avant Music News - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=349012\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ahn Trio Ensemble \u2013 Plays Laurie Spiegel (2025; Maria Ahn Music) \u2013 Avant Music News - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s not even two full steps from this EP back to Charles Ives. One of Laurie Spiegel\u2019s best-loved pieces is titled The Unquestioned Answer, a response of sorts to Ives\u2019s 1908 chamber work, The Unanswered Question. 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