How do you make a von Trapp kid mad? Well, if the kids in question are part of the latest generation of von Trapps -- three sisters and a brother who've been touring the world for years -- you could start by telling them they missed the Van Morrison concert in Winnipeg by just one day. "Dangit!
" shouts eldest sister Sofia, in what's surely one of the more family-friendly expletives ever uttered by an 18-year-old. "I'm going to be ticked off about this for the rest of the day!" To be fair, these von Trapps -- Sofia, 16-year-old Melanie, 15-year-old Amanda, and 12-year-old Justin -- don't appear to be cut from the same cloth as their ancestors, those curtain-clad, Nazi-dodging moppets made famous in the 1965 film The Sound of Music.
For one thing, Sofia is a huge fan of classic rock -- in particular Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jimi Hendrix and a certain Belfast Cowboy, which explains why she's so disappointed to learn she arrived in Winnipeg (following a concert in Winkler) just 24 hours too late to see his show at MTS Centre last month. "That is just terrible," says Sofia, after citing Saint Dominic's Preview as her most cherished album. "He's my favourite artist of all time .
.. I know every word to every song.
" The von Trapps -- the great-grandchildren of Captain Georg, an Austrian naval officer, and Maria, a former nun -- got their start in show biz five years ago, after recording a CD for their grandfather Werner (youngest son Kurt in the movie) while he recovered from a stroke. They've since sold more than one million albums, been paired with symphonies all over the U.S.
, and performed in prestigious theatres in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. "When we first got into this, we were really green," Sofia admits. "But the only reason we got into it was because we love to sing, we love to travel, and it meant we got to do something together as a family .
.. If there was pressure, we didn't feel it in the least.
" When asked whether the von Trapp family legacy weighs heavily on their shoulders -- seriously, is there anyone out there who hasn't seen the movie? -- the kids are characteristically gracious. "We have seen it a lot, but we're not sick of it -- we love it like everyone else," says Melanie.
"Although for the longest time we only saw the first half. We had it on VHS, and it was on two tapes, but at some point the second tape got lost, so we didn't know how it ended." The girls have even been know to wear Maria's dirndls during their stage show (a mixture of Sound of Music tunes, Broadway hits, gospel songs and even Gregorian chants), though you'd be wise not to make any jokes about matching draperies in front of them.
"We were hiking once, and after our guide realized who we were, he got everyone to sing, 'The hills are alive,' " recalls Melanie. "We were all just rolling our eyes, like, come on guys." The kids, who call Montana home, are even tolerant of Gwen Stefani's reworking of The Lonely Goatherd, which figures prominently in her junk-pop dance track Wind it Up.
"We're not really major pop fans or anything," says Melanie. "But then all our friends heard it, so it wasn't long before they made us listen to it, too.
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