CHICAGO – A Filipina from San Carlos City in Pangasinan is now making waves as a song writer, singer and head of a famous country rock band under her name called “Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel” here. The band has been described by Greg Kof, a columnist of the Chicago Tribune, as “one of Chicago’s most treasured voices”.
Ms.
Fermin was only a year old when her parents Renato and Nida Peralta-
Fermin immigrated to the U.S. Her family settled and laid their roots
in America’s dairy land at Kenosha, Wisconsin. Although she studied
classical piano and violin and performed in choirs throughout her
childhood and adolescence, it wasn’t after her graduation from the
Art Institute of Chicago in 1993 that she wrote her first song.
She
set aside her profession as a graphic designer and embarked on a
career closest to her heart, singing and song writing. She said her
father, Renato, must have had the strongest influence on her. She
recalls how her father, a self-proclaimed Filipino Elvis, used to
embarrass her as he sang songs on his karaoke at parties. But she
admits that it was this early exposure to his father’s songs that
instilled in her a love for music. Formed in 1997, Anna Fermin’s
Trigger Gospel has garnered the attention and respect of critics and
music fans alike, hooking audiences with their eclectic songs and
rousing live shows.