Trisno

Early years

Trisno was born into a musically inclined background. His mother, Dahlia Ahmad, was a recording artist at EMI records. Dahlia's sister and brother, Hamidah Ahmad and Eddie Ahmad were also recording artists and recorded a duet titled Mawarku (translated in English as My Rose), which was a major hit in the 1970s. This song has been popularised by Siti Nurhaliza and group 2 by 2 from Malaysia.

Early on in his life, Trisno was exposed to the musical world. His mother brought him to her jazz performances across the region when his father, Ishak Ahmad, was often overseas. Backstage, Trisno would never fail to catch a glimpse of his mother singing and performing in front of the masses. From then on, his musical journey began.

Growing up, Trisno listened to music from genres ranging from jazz to motown to Latin. His early influences include Spyro Gyra (jazz), Shakatak (jazz-funk), Frank Sinatra (vocal jazz) and Julio Iglesias (Latin). Mostly disguised as a toilet singer, his talent was only first spotted at the age of 14. His stepfather, Redwan Ali, exposed him to musicians such as David Sanborn, Miles Davis, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Trisno learnt the importance of music from educational perspective such as music notation, song composition and studio works. Trisno continued learning music and has become adept at piano, acoustic guitar, bass guitar and electric guitar. He obtained 8th grade in bass guitar at Yamaha Music School.

Urban Xchange

As Trisno served his national service, there he met music producer Terry Lee. Under the direction of Terry Lee, Trisno first featured on "Serenade Volume 3" with the song "My Lady, My Bonnie, My Wifey" in an album compilation of Asian-American artists, released in the United States. Together with Terry Lee and five others namely Vanessa Fernandez and Munir Alsagoff, they formed Urban Xchange. Urban Xchange was formed in 2000. The group was signed to a major worldwide label, Universal Music Group, after scoring a Coca-Cola endorsement deal for the "Life Tastes Good" campaign set for Asia. The debut album was released in the year 2001 titled How Did We Get Here?, which includes songs such as "Stupid", which was featured on high rotation on local radio and MTV. The second album, self-titled, was shortly released in 2002, featuring hit single "Buzzin".

In 2001, MTV named Urban Xchange as artist of the month, and they featured on Hollywood's blockbuster movie, Rush Hour 2 Official Soundtrack titled "I wanna be like Jackie Chan". Two years on, in 2003, Urban Xchange won the Best Regional English Album at the AIM awards in Malaysia, and were nominated for Best/Favourite Singapore Artiste in MTV Asia Awards 2003. The group performed alongside Europe's classical pop quintet Wild, British R&B popstar Jay Sean, Australian folk singer Missy Higgins and America's celebrated legend Richard Marx in EMI Rainbow of Sound Showcase 2004 in Bangkok.

Urban Xchange also appeared in Elle Singapore January 2002 edition as 'Hot Musicians' to look out for in 2002. Urban Xchange's achievement and fame in local and regional scene was rooted in "its fusion of sounds" Pivotal to their success also was key figure Hans Ebert, who was vice-president of Universal Music Asia Pacific and then,joining EMI Recorded Music Southeast Asia as advisor to chairman in September 2002. When Urban Xchange was reborn as Parking Lot Pimp, Hans maintained close affiliation and support for the new band.

Parking Lot Pimp

In 2005, Urban Xchange evolved into Parking Lot Pimp, boasting psychedelic and space rock. It was composed of four members of Urban Xchange – Trisno, Vanessa, Terry and Munir, as well as new edition Jeremy Green, who is an American rapper. The shift in music genre and band image was primarily because of boredom of Urban Xchange and hip-hop. Their album Welcome to our frequency was released in 2005. They were named MTV Advance Warning Artiste. In 2005 and 2006, Parking Lot Pimp featured on American Online Music (AOL). This album featured hit song "Blow"

Solo

Trisno has sung at various bars including J bar, Blue Bar Bistro and Indochine, and performs regularly at the annual MOSAIC music festival. He has numerous credentials to his name from collaborations, features and performances.

In the first Singapore edition of Don't Forget The Lyrics!, held by MediaCorp in 2008, Trisno was the guide vocalist. Later on, in 2009, he performed alongside Singapore's premiere fusion outfit Novo Bloco. for the Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival held in Zirca (Singapore).

The Trisno Trio

In 2011, Trisno spearheaded the formation of The Trisno Trio, an eclectic acoustic group, together with Clifford Gomez (a.k.a. "Cliffy") and Abdul Rahman (a.k.a. "Joey").

Sennheiser Asia's Sound Heroes

In August 2012, Sennheiser Electronic Asia ("Sennheiser Asia") launched its regional marketing campaign entitled "The Pursuit of Perfect Sound", to mark its twentieth anniversary of direct presence in the region.

Shortly after, in September 2012, The Trisno Trio were named as one of Sennheiser Asia's Sound Heroes. On 16 November 2012, The Trisno Trio were showcased as one of eleven Sennheiser Asia Sound Heroes in Sennheiser Asia's twentieth anniversary celebrations held at Zouk Singapore.

Egypt

In March 2013, Trisno Trio launched their debut album entitled "Egypt". Songs from Egypt have made various headlines locally and overseas. For example, Trisno was invited on Mediacorp Suria's beauty-cum-talent competition, Ratu, as a guest artiste to showcase Trisno Trio's song, Ratu.

Since launch of Egypt, Trisno Trio have performed at various events such as Singapore's Mosaic Music Festival, Sonic Spree Music Festival and ONE (Singapore)'s second annual gala "ONE BALL 2013".

In October 2013, Trisno Trio performed and was nominated for two awards – "Best Collaboration" & "Best Duo / Group" – at 2013 Anugerak Planet Muzik 2013.

Teaching career

Trisno continues to share his passion for music with youths in schools and institutions through teaching. His students are taught from a variety of music specialisation subjects such as music production, strum & sing guitar classes, rap mission, vocal classes and world-music/hip hop acid production. Some of the schools that he has taught in are Saint Gabriel's Secondary School, Pierce Secondary School and Canberra Secondary School.

Collaborations (group and solo)

Performances (group and solo)

Features (group and solo)