Priscilla Ahn

I put Priscilla up in an empty apartment with a microphone, loop station, and her guitar. She’d invited some friends and a few fans from her show the night before to be a part of this private concert. Most of them came in pairs, talking about their favorite music and the last bad movie they’d seen. The rest of the fans were alone and stood quietly as Priscilla and I decided on the play list. Like some sort of instinct, she began playing for the crowd stuffed into the room as I set up the camera. She continued to sing as I turned the camera onto her, stepping out from the fringes.

The sun was going down so we opted for fewer windows. We crammed into the elevator and watched the buttons light up one by one. The crowd filed in to the breezy rooftop balcony, sitting on the oversized couches as I asked Priscilla what she thought about when she played onstage…

We took to the streets around Little Tokyo as darkness rolled in. The shopping district was buzzing with people walking and laughing and waving down the street to friends. Priscilla and I watched a man playing a Shamisen hoping to find some odd amalgam, but the sound was too discordant from her own. Only a few people seemed to notice Priscilla playing as we walked between the fluorescents lights and outdoor eateries. I stopped abruptly and asked her to sing an A cappella version of ‘The Moon’. After she began people started to gather behind the camera, drawn to her presence. A pair of security guards stood near us, deciding between each other if we were allowed to film. Maybe they once had dreams of being musicians themselves. On our way back to the apartment Priscilla was still singing, in her own harmonic world away from the all the other noises in the city. She sang her way right past us, as we stopped to cross the street.

(the iTunes files will be online in a few hours)