Vienna Teng

Once in a while NPR will feature a musical group that will grab my attention. A few years back, NPR did a piece on Pearl Django that got me into their music.

This Sunday, I was grabbed by a piece on Vienna Teng. I only heard part of the piece, but the song that caught me was Harbor. (There's a splendid live performance in the NPR piece, or you can get an MP3 of the studio performance off her web site. (Click 'Harbor' and you'll get the lyrics and the song.) I've spent the last nine months away from my family for more than half the time, so you'll appreciate why this song resonates for me. I went back later to listen to the entire NPR piece, and discovered that Vienna was a computer science graduate from Stanford who gave all that up for her music. Sounds like the right choice to me.

Vienna has an arresting voice and a strong hand at the piano. I'm going to have to get her album Warm Strangers. And if I can make it, she's got a show in Atlanta on March 20th at the Red Light Cafe.