Fancy a Pink Martini?

Pink Martini has sold over a million albums in US and have sold over 150,000 in the UK make their appearance in the UK City of Culture as part of the band’s Spring UK tour, including a sell out Royal Albert Hall.

In 1994 in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, Thomas Lauderdale was working in politics, thinking that one day he would run for mayor. He went to every political fundraiser under the sun and was dismayed to find the music at these events underwhelming, lackluster, loud and un-neighborly. Drawing inspiration from music from all over the world, crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop and, hoping to appeal to conservatives and liberals alike, he founded the ‘little orchestra’ Pink Martini in 1994 to provide more beautiful and inclusive musical soundtracks for political fundraisers for causes such as civil rights, affordable housing, the environment, libraries, public broadcasting, education and parks.

One year later, Lauderdale called China Forbes, a Harvard classmate who was living in New York City, and asked her to join Pink Martini. They began to write songs together. Their first song ‘Sympathique’ became an overnight sensation. Like it’s members the band repertoire is wildly diverse: At one moment, you feel like you’re in the middle of a samba parade in Rio de Janeiro, and in the next moment, you’re in a French music hall of the 1930s or a palazzo in Napoli. It’s a bit like an urban musical travelogue. Very much an American band, the members of Pink Martini spend a lot of time abroad and, therefore, have a broad appeal.

Featuring 10 to 12 musicians, Pink Martini performs its multilingual repertoire on concert stages and with symphony orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Australia and New Zealand, South America and North America.

The band has collaborated and performed with numerous artists, such as Jimmy Scott, Carol Channing, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Jane Powell, Henri Salvador, Chavela Vargas, New York performer Joey Arias, puppeteer Basil Twist, Georges Moustaki, Michael Feinstein, filmmaker Gus Van Sant, Courtney Taylor of The Dandy Warhols, clarinetist and conductor Norman Leyden, Japanese legend Hiroshi Wada, Italian actress and songwriter Alba Clemente, DJ Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi Valenti, the original cast of Sesame Street, the Bonita Vista High School Marching Band from Chula Vista, California, and the Pacific Youth Choir of Portland, Oregon.

In January 2012, bandleader Thomas Lauderdale recorded the Charlie Chaplin song “Smile” with the 94-year-old legendary Phyllis Diller; this song will be released on a future Pink Martini album, tentatively titled “Get Happy.”

they have a new single with Rufus Wainright and Van Trapp grandchildren.