Journey of 1000 Miles Spotlight: Jean Ahn
- Leah Froyd
- Apr 28
- 6 min read
Hi, and welcome back to our spotlight series supporting our upcoming concert series, Journey of 1000 Miles starting May 3rd!!
Dr. Ahn will be present & answering audiences questions May 3rd and May 17th.
Q. As a chamber musician, it was particularly fun to discover all the classical idioms you used and obsessed over in this piece– is there a specific piece from the repertoire that was an ear worm for you during the composition of this piece?I feel like I could hear a lot of Mozart, Beethoven, and even Mendelssohn !
That’s funny you say that– I never quoted a specific piece, it naturally happened that I was able to incorporate so many tropes from the canon by being immersed in studying it! I don’t even remember the exact Haydn trio, it was more the ornamentation and gestures that inspired me. I find that ornamentations in contemporary music are often lost – they’re marked as too cliché – but I loved the fun of them. Once I started the piece, I found myself gravitating to the harmonic V-I gesture especially.
I’m also very indebted to Ensemble Ari who celebrated their 10th anniversary last year. Before working with them I had a long career in academia – I came from a very composer-centric perspective, always thinking about compositional techniques. I would give my pieces to the performers and leave them to it. I was always displeased with performance and up until grad school, I rarely had performances of my work. If a piece of mine was chosen, it would only be for “academic” programs.
My first true collaborative experience was with Ensemble Ari. It so happened that I had to page turn for many of their concerts which exposed me to a great body of chamber works that I had not studied before. I suddenly understood why the players wanted to play this music– the captivating melodies and the mechanics of playing in a chamber ensemble. That changed the style of my writing.
I’d say after that experience, I reversed the way I began composing pieces. I began to start with the instrument and what it can do, then let my own curiosity take the reins. For example, I have a new Woodwind Quintet being premiered by the group, Fivemind Reeds. I’ve written for most of the instruments before but I’ve noticed myself being inspired not only by their individual instruments but also the performers themselves. I realized that allowing them freedom is much better than me spending months worrying over a single passage.
Q. How did creating your own interpretation of the Haydn affect your compositional voice, especially as someone who has masterfully blended conservatory training and traditional Korean music?
I learned a lot of things from this piece– for example, when composers are having too much fun, the piece becomes too long! I did a lot of revision later.
At the beginning, I was mostly excited that this was happening– this new style of composition felt very intuitive. That being said, many technical elements are very exposed– there are a lot of sections where you can clearly hear one enter voice at a time, so it helped improve my compositional technique a lot.
Q. Do you feel you naturally favor one tradition more than the other or do you think they work in tandem?
Although I’m experienced in Korean music, I'm not as comfortable since I didn’t receive the same degree of formal training as I did for western music. Even when I began learning music, I started with learning western music. If I’m trying too hard to “do” korean music I feel it might be perceived as superficial, so I would title my Korean inspirations as “Jeans Ahn’s way of learning Korean music”. I enjoy that I have a unique viewpoint and am able to traverse the two in my own way.
Q. What are some of your favorite moments in the piece?
Definitely the recap and coda! It’s kind of rare for contemporary pieces to have such a formal structure, but I really embraced it. Even though the piece is constantly surprising you, I think it’s nice to have a sense of familiarity in the form.
Q. Which visual artists are the perfect match for your music?
I love going to local art galleries and high school art galleries. To me, it’s important to understand the local relevance and issues behind the paintings, even if they’re abstract. It’s interesting to look at titles and read the blurbs to try to get to know the artist as a person.
In the blurb accompanying my daughter’s recent art piece, Keys to Memory talked about how she always had music growing up and her gratitude for the many experiences she had with it. As a contemporary composer, I was always concerned and guilty that I was only playing “weird” music— even in the car I’m playing Boulez– and I was always going to rehearsals and concerts. It was so touching to realise that she felt that way and that my chasing my own dream of being a composer served as inspiration to her to follow her passion.
Q. How has motherhood influenced your writing style?
For me, motherhood has been such a source of inspiration. It’s been a big part of my life and has brought me closer to the community of other mothers and I love when the two come together: my piece, Toys for flute and piano commissioned by two moms who I met through our kids. The piece actually uses musical toys like music boxes along with extended techniques on real instruments.
I once gave a talk about this piece at UC Berkeley– an audience member noted to me that very few people talk about motherhood as a part of their compositions. When they do, they regard motherhood as “unprofessional” or a separate part of their lives, but she enjoyed the way I took it as a serious inspiration for my work.
Another piece that was inspired by my experience as a mother was during my composer in residence session with the Berkeley Symphony. I was prompted with the title, The Longest Night. My colleagues went in very serious and profound directions, but the idea that I associated with “the longest night” was when my kid didn’t go to sleep!
Motherhood has given me many challenges but has also imbued me with the sense that “mothers can do anything”. We don’t have the luxury to only work when it’s quiet or when our attention isn’t being pulled 100 different ways so I’ve learned to adapt to my working environments and become adept at working on ideas in the background– for example I might be cuddling but will be still ruminating on a theme or musical material.
Q. How have the opportunities you’ve been given changed throughout your career? Do you find there are differences depending on your location?
Opportunities have changed as my career matured. One thing I found particularly difficult after I moved to the states was that the standard for music production/how the score looks and notation was much different than the Korean notation. At the time, Korean musical notation was much less standardized– we followed German traditions and our presentation of the score mattered much less than in the US. That’s one example of how hard it was for me to break into the composer world in America.
Another culture shock was that in Korea, all the work was given to you. Here, it is much more common to rely upon your own self entrepreneurship. During my first year at Berkeley, I was confused how everyone was so busy! I never went out of my way to chat with the performers or advocate for myself because there was a degree of formality that I was used to in Korea and didn’t want to overstep as a newcomer in the states. Looking back I realize how many things I missed out on because of that, and wish that there was a guidebook for international students like me.
Today when I teach my own composition students, I make sure to emphasize these two things! I make sure they all know how important it is to make a good visual first impression with notation and scores and encourage my students to build connections with performers in order to lead the way to more opportunities and relationships with the music.
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