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QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, June 23, 2011 Page 26
CELEB OF QUEENS page 26
WONDER WOMEN OF Q UEENS
A musical master is in the making
Ashley Chambers plays classical piano and jazz saxophone works by Bud Taylor Chronicle Contributor
hen Ashley Chambers isn’t wielding nunchucks on the practice floor of Zen Masters Martial Arts Academy in St. Albans, she’s in a back room giving piano lessons to children. That’s because the 18-yearold tae kwon do black belt is also a dedicated pianist and alto saxophonist with a passion for performance, teaching and community involvement. Ashley grew up in Cambria Heights with her sister Brittany, 21, and brother Kyle, 12. She was raised by her Jamaican-born father, Dennis, and Harlem-native mother, Sharon. Her music-loving parents, who together run Zen Masters, exposed her to martial arts training and music at a young age. Ashley’s first foray into music — organ followed by piano lessons around the age of 8 — was not by choice. “My mother forced me to play,” said Ashley with a laugh, “until I actually really enjoyed playing.” As her piano skills developed, her desire to play and her ear for classical music gradually did too. She grew to love the “romantic” sound of Chopin, especially his “Fantaisie Impromptu.” She’s also a fan of Mozart. One of her favorites is his 12 playfully intricate variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” “I really enjoy playing that because people are familiar with it, but they also get very surprised to hear all the different ways it can be interpreted,” Ashley said. She started teaching piano lessons six years ago. Her mom inspired her to start the business, which she now calls “Keiko Studios” and operates out of the martial arts academy. Keiko is her middle name. As for alto saxophone, Ashley adopted the woodwind at
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IS 25 in Flushing when she wanted to join the band and playing piano was not an option. She was reluctant to play sax at first, but her father encouraged her. In high school, she began to embrace the instrument much as she did piano. Ashley attended the Academy of Music at Bayside High School, playing in the concert and jazz bands. In her third year, she became lead alto in both bands and received the school’s Juniors Oscar Award for highest scores in music class. As a senior, she was president of the Chamber Music Club. Ashley’s jazz study and performance extended beyond Bayside. She was awarded the Sean Cheesewright Queens College Jazz Scholarship to study at the Lawrence Eisman Center for Preparatory Studies in Music. For three years, she also performed extensively with the York College Blue Notes, a jazz big band of high school musicians. She loves music’s ability to transcend language barriers and touch people. “To be able to share something with people that don’t even speak the same language as you. I think it’s very powerful,” she said. Ashley recently started playing sax for the band at Mt. Moriah AME Church in Cambria Heights. “Whenever … we start improvising in Ashley Chambers performs during an April piano recital at the Illinois the church, everyone starts praising and you can Jacquet Performance Space at the Chapel of the Sisters in Jamaica. really tell they get into the music,” she said. COURTESY PHOTO Ashley got another glimpse of how her music touches others when she played sax June 12 at the Broad dad that way,” she said. Ashley starts her second year at the New School for Jazz Street Ballroom for a Real Dads Network-hosted event celebrating fathers. To her surprise, after she dedicated a and Contemporary Music in Manhattan in the fall. She song to her father, who was in the audience, it brought plans to keep performing and to become a musical advocate. “I want to go to schools and show children how they him to tears. Q “It really made me happy that I was able to affect my can express themselves through music,” she said.
A musical prodigy who keeps her balance Ashley Park, 14, will play next year with the Queens Symphony Orchestra by Peter C. Mastrosimone Editor-in-Chief
shley Park wanted to play the violin, but her parents thought she was too young. She had to wait another two years before she got her hands on her instrument of choice, they insisted — she had to wait until she was 5. But once she started playing, it became clear that Ashley, now 14, was a virtuoso. When she was 6, she got to play with the Elan International Music Festival
14TH ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF QUEENS • 2011
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Orchestra, performing in Vermont for an audience that included the surviving members of the Von Trapp family — the real people behind “The Sound of Music” musical and movie. She did it again when she was 7. She was also 7 when she first won the New York Music Competition, held at the Flushing YWCA, and as a prize got to perform at Carnegie Hall. She won the competition four years in a row — every year she entered it. In many ways Ashley is the
Ashley Park is a violinist who also paints, swims and has a black belt in tae PHOTO BY PJ SMITH kwon do.
definition of the musical prodigy. She was born with perfect pitch, “a gift from God,” said her mother, Linda. In addition to violin, she plays piano and flute — and just recently picked up her brother Andrew’s trumpet and started playing. But, her mother added, Ashley doesn’t play all day to the exclusion of all else in life. “She’s analytical, she thinks,” Linda Park said. “She has much more diverse interests, and I think that diversity plays into her music and keeps her life very balanced.” It was, in fact, the surviving Von Trapps, now in their 90s, who told Park and her husband, Richard, to “protect Ashley’s childhood” by not limiting her to music alone — advice they took to heart. While allowing Ashley wide latitude in making decisions for herself, they made sure that academics, athletics and just plain fun didn’t fall by the wayside. “She didn’t want to be considered out of the norm, and we wanted her to have a normal childhood,” Linda Park said. For one, the Fresh Meadows native earned a black belt in tae kwon do. “It just feels good to know that I have a sense of protection if I
ever have to go somewhere scary,” Ashley said. She’s on the varsity swim team at the elite Brearley School in Manhattan, where she just finished ninth grade. She also paints, inspired by the view from the academy’s windows overlooking the East River. “Just as painting is a visual art, with many colors and layers and depth, music has many colors and depth too,” Linda Park said. When her daughter plays 19th-century French music, for example, and paints in the styles of 19th-century French artists, “you can see the connection,” she explained. Of course Ashley excels academically, being especially intrigued by science, and biology in particular, though as her mother said, “She’s interested in all areas.” “Ashley is a remarkable student and has been a wonderful addition to our community,” said Brearley teacher and administrator Matt Plunkett, who credited her with “a quick, dry sense of humor and a laid-back style” even as “academically, she demonstrates a strong work ethic and a desire to seek new challenges.” One of those challenges came last March, when she played the first movement of Henryk Wieniawski’s
Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Opus 14 at a competition held by the Queens Symphony Orchestra, performing so well she’ll get to play with the group at a show next season. “She plays very musically, and has an emotional connection to the music that is beyond her years,” QSO Music Director Constantine Kitsopoulos said. “When she plays, you feel like you’re listening to someone who’s much more mature emotionally. ... She’s a very poised young lady and really quite mature for her age.” On getting to play with the QSO, Ashley said, “It’s really cool because it’s the first competition I did that involves a really wellknown orchestra, and because it’s an opportunity to work with other people as well.” Ashley also has put her gifts to use at fundraising concerts for church missions and shows for the residents of nursing homes. After classes, she travels to the famed Juilliard School for its precollege program, where her professors are the renowned Hyo Kang and I-Hao Lee, also artistic director of the Amadeus Music Center in Flushing. In all Ashley Park does, Q the very best is the norm.