Pink Martini

Pink Martini is a 13-member "little orchestra" from Portland, Oregon, formed in 1994 by pianist Thomas M. Lauderdale. They draw inspiration from music from all over the world – crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop.

Pink Martini has twelve musicians (and sometimes travels with string sections), and performs its multilingual repertoire on concert stages and with symphony orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Australia and New Zealand and North America. Pink Martini made its European debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and its orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony in 1998 under the direction of Norman Leyden. Since then, the band has gone on to play with over 30 orchestras around the world, including multiple engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Boston Pops, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. Other appearances include the grand opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with return sold-out engagements for New Year’s Eve 2003, 2004 & 2008; two sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall; the opening party of the remodeled Museum of Modern Art in NYC; the Governor’s Ball at the 80th Annual Academy Awards in 2008; and the opening of the 2008 Sydney Festival in Australia.

Lauderdale met China Forbes, Pink Martini’s lead vocalist, at Harvard. He was studying history and literature while she was studying English literature and painting. Late at night, they would break into the lower common room in their college dormitory and sing arias by Puccini and Verdi – and the occasional campy Barbara Streisand cover –thus sealing their creative collaboration. Three years after graduating, Lauderdale called Forbes who was living in New York City, where she’d been writing songs and playing guitar in her own folk-rock project, and asked her to join Pink Martini. They began to write songs together for the band. Their first song “Sympathique”– with the chorus “Je ne veux pas travailler”(”I don’t want to work”) – became an overnight sensation in France, and was even nominated for “Song of the Year” at France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards.
Pink Martini’s debut album Sympathique was released independently in 1997 on the band’s own label Heinz Records (named after Lauderdale’s dog), and quickly became an international phenomenon, garnering the group nominations for “Song of the Year” and “Best New Artist”in France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2000.

In October 2004, the group released its second album, Hang on Little Tomato.
In May 2007, the group released its third album, Hey Eugene!.
Their fourth studio album, Splendor in the Grass (album) was released on October 27, 2009.
Sympathique, Hang on Little Tomato and Hey Eugene! have all gone gold in France, Canada, Greece and Turkey, and Pink Martini's records have collectively sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
On New Year's Eve 2005, Pink Martini performed live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. This performance was aired live on National Public Radio's Toast of the Nation, and in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting was recorded for a live DVD and later broadcast on US public broadcasting and French television. The DVD has been rereleased to retail as Discover the World: Live in Concert, featuring not only the full concert, but several vignettes and a short documentary of the band's history.

The band has collaborated and performed with Jimmy Scott, Carol Channing, Henri Salvador, Jane Powell, Chavela Vargas, Georges Moustaki, Michael Feinstein, DJ Dimitri from Paris, clarinetist and conductor Norman Leyden, Hiroshi Wada, DJ Johnny Dynell and several drag queens from New York City, among others. On June 1, 2007, the band appeared on the long-running BBC Two Later with Jools Holland TV music program. On June 14, 2007, Pink Martini performed on Late Show with David Letterman, performing "Hey Eugene".
Pink Martini played Walt Disney Concert Hall on New Year's Eve for the first two years it was open (2003/4 and 2004/5). They returned to play NYE there again in 2008/9.
In May 2009, the band recorded three concerts with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Carlos Kalmar for the band’s fifth album … a symphonic record which is slated for a 2011 release.

Pink Martini songs appear in such films as In the Cut, Nurse Betty, Josie and the Pussycats, Tortilla Soup, Shanghai Kiss and Mr. & Mrs. Smith and have been used on television shows such as Dead Like Me, The Sopranos and The West Wing, among others.[citation needed] Their song "Una notte a Napoli" is an integral part of the Italian movie Mine Vaganti (2010), by the Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek. The song "No Hay Problema" is included as background/setup music for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and was also used as the background/setup music for an early build of Windows Longhorn, now known as Windows Vista.
In February 2011, the group's lead singer, China Forbes, recorded a video greeting to the European Space Agency's Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri, on board the International Space Station. The astronauts were preparing to oversee the docking of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo vessel, Johannes Kepler, which took place at 17:08 CET on 24 February. The greeting was set to the sound track of Dosvedanya Mio Bombino - one of Pink Martini's signature songs - and was mixed with footage of the actual docking.




Pink Martini es una "pequeña orquesta" de Portland, Oregon, fundada en 1994 por el pianista Thomas M. Lauderdale. Pink Martini interpreta diferentes géneros musicales como la música latina, música lounge, música clásica, o el jazz. Su música ha sido descrita muchas veces como "vintage", una descripción que muestra el contenido, el estilo y la duración de las canciones que han inspirado muchas de sus canciones.
Originalmente crecieron juntos para en representaciones en Portland, Pink Martini realizó su debut europeo en el Festival de Cine de Cannes. Durante el 2003 el grupo realizó una gira que incluyó países como Francia, España, Portugal, Bélgica, Suiza, Mónaco, Grecia, Turquía, Perú, Taiwán, Líbano y los Estados Unidos, realizando conciertos propios o como acompañantes de otros grupos. Las letras de sus canciones están cantadas en diferentes idiomas: inglés, español, francés, italiano, portugués, japonés e incluso en árabe o griego moderno, en algunas ocasiones.

El álbum debut de Pink Martini, Sympathique, fue producido por el propio sello del grupo, Heinz Records, en el 1997, del cual se han vendido más de 1.300.000 copias por todo el mundo. La canción con el mismo nombre se presentó en el CD "World Lounge" Putumayo World Music.
En octubre de 2004, el grupo grabó su segundo disco, Hang on Little Tomato. Durante el periodo que va de su primer a su segundo disco, el cantante Pepe Raphael dejó el grupo para concentrarse en su segundo grupo, Pepe and the Bottle Blondes. La cantante principal China Forbes continuó escribiendo canciones con Lauderdale, ayudando a la banda a tomar una dirección más original.
Las canciones de Pink Martini han aparecido en diversas películas como En carne viva (In the Cat), "Persiguiendo a Betty" (Nurse Betty), "Josie y las Melódicas" (Josie and the Pussycats), Tortilla Soup, Shanghai Kiss y "El Sr. y la Sra. Smith" (Mr. & Mrs. Smith), y han sido usadas igualmente en series de televisión "Tan muertos como yo" (Dead Like Me), "Los Soprano" (The Sopranos) y "El ala oeste" (The West Wing), entre otros[cita requerida]. La canción "No hay problema" está incluida como música de fondo para Windows Server 2003 de Microsoft, así como en Windows Longhorn, ahora conocido como Windows Vista.

Durante la noche de Año Nuevo del año 2005, Pink Martini actuó en vivo en el Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall en Portland, Oregón. Su actuación se retransmitió en vivo en el Toast of the Nation del National Public Radio, y fue grabado para un directo en DVD y posteriormente retransmitido durante la emisión pública americana US public broadcasting y para la televisión francesa.
Debido a lo extenso de la banda, Pink Martini tiene problemas encontrando locales adecuados para tocar en algunas ciudades. Gracias a la ayuda de un amigo, Norman Leyden, empezaron sus representaciones tocando con algunas orquesta por todo el país, mientras crecían sus fans. El 1 de junio de 2007, la banda apareció durante el programa musical de televisión Later with Jools Holland del canal BBC Two. A mediados de septiembre de 2007, el grupo fue al Hollywood Bowl para realizar tres actuaciones que incluyeron a los artistas invitados Carol Channing y Henri Salvador.

El 14 de junio de 2007, Pink Martini actuó en el Late Show with David Letterman, interpretando Hey Eugene.