Vienna Teng

All Music Guide:

Reaching the national spotlight at the end of 2002, pianist Vienna Teng had been an important part of the California singer/songwriter scene for a few years before then. A pianist since the age of five, Teng took piano lessons before moving on to improvisation. Writing feverishly throughout her youth, she eventually had a full album's worth of instrumentals by the age of 16. Going to Stanford to further her education, she released an EP while going to school and recorded most of Waking Hour before she graduated. After releasing the record independently and taking it on the road with her, she scored an agreement with Virt Records and got national distribution in the fall of 2002. Comprised of many intimate songs that detailed the issues of a young adult, her music fell between the uptempo approach of Ben Folds and the theatrical chamber pop of Rufus Wainwright. She followed up in early 2004 with the matured and critically acclaimed effort Warm Strangers, which charted on three separate Billboard charts. Touring with musicians like Joan Osborne, Shawn Colvin, and Patty Griffin over the years, Teng next hooked up with producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux) for her next album, Dreaming Through the Noise, issued in July 2006. That summer, she began to tour with Duncan Sheik and continued a heavy concert schedule throughout 2007. After relocating from California to New York City in 2008, Teng began work on her fourth full-length album, Inland Territory, which was released on Zoë/Rounder in 2009.

Wikipedia:

Cynthia Yih Shih (b. October 3, 1978, Saratoga, California), better known by her stage name Vienna Teng, is a Taiwanese American pianist and singer-songwriter based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Teng has released four studio albums: Waking Hour (2002), Warm Strangers (2004), Dreaming Through the Noise (2006), and Inland Territory (2009). She has also released one live album, The Moment Always Vanishing (2009), on which she is double-billed with her percussionist, Alex Wong.

Teng's musical style incorporates folk, pop, classical piano, and a cappella. She uses piano as her primary instrument and writes lyrics with emotion, narrative, and personal history.

Career

Teng took her stage name "Vienna" from the capital city of Austria. A native of Saratoga, California, she began playing classical piano at age 5. While pursuing a degree in computer science at Stanford University, Teng joined the Stanford Harmonics, a student-run a cappella group. She began recording her compositions at the studios in Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), intending to distribute her music on campus. Many of these recordings were eventually released in her debut album Waking Hour. After graduating in 2000, Teng worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems in San Jose, but she continued to write music and perform in her free time. In 2002, Teng signed with Virt Records and quit Cisco Systems to focus on her musical career.

Teng's first major national exposure was on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition in January 2003, followed shortly thereafter by CBS's Late Show with David Letterman. She has since made appearances on the CBS Saturday Early Show, CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown and The Wayne Brady Show, and opened concerts for Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, India.Arie, Brandi Carlile, Sarah Harmer and Marc Cohn. Her first album, Waking Hour, peaked at #5 on the Amazon.com bestseller list; her second album, Warm Strangers, reached as high as #2. In 2006, Teng signed with Zoë/Rounder.

From December 2006 to early 2007, she toured extensively in the United States to promote the release of her third album, Dreaming Through the Noise. Teng co-headlined with Duncan Sheik and opened for Madeleine Peyroux. She began the Green Caravan Tour in April 2007, accompanied by cellist Marika Hughes, violinist Dina Maccabee, and percussionist Alex Wong, along with opening acts such as David Berkeley and Jenny Owen Youngs. In 2008, she relocated from California to New York City, and performed in Central Park on Earth Day at the Green Apple Festival.

Her fourth album, Inland Territory, won the ninth annual Independent Music Awards Vox Pop vote for best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Album.

In 2010, Teng announced to her fans that she had been accepted into the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. Through the program, she will receive an MBA from the Ross School of Business and an MS from the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Teng continues to perform and compose music, although she does not tour as frequently as she had before enrolling.

Cultural influence on music

Although nearly all of Teng's recordings are in English, Warm Strangers features a hidden cover of "Green Island Serenade," a 1950's Taiwanese classic by Teresa Teng performed in Mandarin Chinese. Teng has also stated live that the lyrics to "Grandmother Song" from Inland Territory are nearly a verbatim translation of a lecture Teng received from her Mandarin-speaking grandmother, voicing her disapproval of Teng's career choice.