The Ahn Trio are three sisters, originally from Korea, who graduated from Juilliard. Their performance on Wednesday night at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the conclusion of this year’s three-concert Shenson Chamber Music Concert Series, was a lightweight 80 minutes of mostly popular music. The Ahn Trio thrives on the same crossover concept as the Turtle Island String Quartet, in fact opening with a piece by the Turtle Island’s first violinist, David Balakrishnan (Tremors), and closing with a piece first recorded by the Turtles, Katrina Wreede’s Mr. Twitty’s Chair. What do the Ahn sisters have over the Turtle Island String Quartet? People Magazine included them in their issue of the 50 most beautiful people. And with good reason. However, of dubious worth as a recommendation for listening.

Much of the concert’s first half was devoted to a suite by Juilliard graduate Kenji Bunch, a Young Concert Artists composer-in-residence and a friend of the Ahn sisters. Swing Shift: Music for Evening Hour (2002) sounds like minimalism crossed with jazz and rock beats. Bunch dedicated the work, a portrait of New York nightlife, to businesses that stay open in the city 24 hours a day. Bunch’s style is very repetitive: he must use the cut and paste function a lot in his Sibelius or Finale program. Often a measure is repeated, exactly, four times. I found the piece stultifying, only as something on which one is expected to concentrate in silence. If I had a drink in hand and a friend to chat with, it would fit quite pleasantly into the background.