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.