Her affinity for the Latin traditions, however, was easily transmitted through personal associations and music. “My connection with the culture was growing up in a really diverse neighborhood in Portland and through friends of my mother,” she adds. She came by her name for a simple but highly symbolic reason. “My mom taught in Mexico for two years and really felt connected to the culture there,” Esperanza continues. “So when she became pregnant with me, she wanted my arrival to signify hope in her life. She thought that Esperanza was a beautiful and fitting name, so, here I am!”

The influence of Latin and Brazilian music is particularly strong on her debut album Junjo, released on a Spanish label in 2006. “Most of the music that enters my playing comes from performing with people who are experts with particular styles,” she explains, noting that her two collaborators on that first album were Cuban musicians. “I’ve never been one to dissect something in a vacuum and bring it to a playing situation. My appreciation for Cuban and Brazilian music came through playing experiences. Little by little, through the process of playing it, it becomes part of your identity.”

The career development of the three musicians has seen some unconventional, but ultimately beneficial, twists and turns. Esperanza, for instance, tip-toed lightly into the classical realm for the album that earned her a Grammy, Chamber Music Society, scoring arrangements for a string quartet to back her jazz and funk-rooted compositions. Anna Maria, who is the principal harpist with the Sacramento Philharmonic, has branched out successfully into pop music and tango, recording several albums aimed at a non classical audience, including Enchanted Christmas and Broadway Center Stage. And Berta, who has released such critically acclaimed solo recital albums as Intimate Barrios and Terruño, now has the opportunity to attract a new audience through her collaboration with Paquito D’Rivera. Their duo album, A Day and a Half, will be released late this spring. Along the way, each step forward on the career path has come with challenges and opportunities.

Esperanza, who went, literally overnight, from a child prodigy in Portland to the toast of the jazz world on the campus of the world’s most important jazz finishing school, is a young woman totally in charge of her future. “I don’t have a ‘producer’ in the traditional sense of the word,” she affirms. “I’ll come up with an idea, and my manager will begin massaging the concept with the record label. I actually conceived of Radio Music Society at the same time as I did the Chamber Music Society album, but there was no way all of the ideas could live together on the same album.”

So, Esperanza made a strategic decision. “Because I had been experimenting with writing for strings, I saw colors emerge out a few of the songs,” she adds. “And I decided to go the chamber music way in interpreting some of the compositions. But, what’s the opposite of chamber music? It’s radio, where you just blast something out. So, with that idea in mind, I separated the works into two families of music. The more I worked with the concept, the more I realized that it wasn’t whether or not the music would actually end up on the radio — the songs are too long anyway — but that it would sound beautiful, that we would all have a great time and that I could bring to fruition the potential I felt in every composition.”

For Anna Maria, every day seems to bring another surprising development in her career. Recently, the American Harp Society co-commissioned a concerto featuring Latin American rhythms to be composed for her, with performances already scheduled with three symphony orchestras next year. It’s another example of how this charismatic young harpist has impressed so many across the entire spectrum of classical and popular music styles. After all, none other than Barry Manilow called her his “favorite harpist.”

“Many years ago,” she recalls, “I played for several of Barry’s touring shows, and I was told by his assistant just before the first performance that he would introduce all of the instrumentalists and ask them to play a little something. He probably expected just a little strum from the harpist, but when it came to my turn, I remember that I was very nervous inside not having anything planned. I played something very showy, hamming it up quite a bit. I think it caught everyone by surprise, because I remember Barry stopped, and with a big smile, chuckled and nodded approvingly!”

Anna Maria has also developed a passion for Argentina’s tango, a style previously unexplored by a harpist. “In 2005, in order to understand the music better,” she recounts, “I took tango dancing lessons and, what an eye opener! The music now made sense; I was learning how to be grounded and connect with the earth. We, as musicians, also have to become like dancers and be so intuitively sensitive to one another.” Her tango explorations led to associations with masters of the genre, the formation of her own touring group, Tango del Cielo, and an upcoming recording project to highlight her new expertise.

Of all three, Berta is the most focused on an objective. She has a strong conviction to make the music of her homeland better known throughout the world and shine a spotlight on the remarkable creativity of her country’s best classical composers. “I have a feeling that Paraguay comes from a deep silence, marked perhaps by years of dictatorship that made our ability to express ourselves outwardly very guarded,” she explains. Today, as a roving cultural ambassador, she is in a unique position to illuminate the artistry of Agustin Barrios, Luis Alberto del Paraná and other composers. “My duties are to keep traveling the world and providing that space where the audience and the artist meet, where the sounds of my land echo and silence becomes music.”