Vienna Teng

Vienna Teng stepped into the national spotlight toward the close of 2002, having already become a fixture in California’s singer/songwriter community several years earlier. She had started playing piano at five, completed formal lessons, and then turned to improvisation; throughout her adolescence she composed with such intensity that she had assembled a full set of instrumental works by age sixteen. While studying at Stanford she issued an EP and finished the greater part of Waking Hour before receiving her degree. After issuing the album independently and promoting it through live performances, she secured a contract with Virt Records that brought national distribution in fall 2002. The songs, intimate reflections on young-adult experience, sat between the buoyant approach of Ben Folds and the theatrical chamber pop of Rufus Wainwright. Early in 2004 she returned with the more seasoned and widely praised Warm Strangers, which registered on three separate Billboard charts. In subsequent years she toured alongside Joan Osborne, Shawn Colvin, and Patty Griffin. For her next project she enlisted producer Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Madeleine Peyroux) to shape Dreaming Through the Noise, released in July 2006. That summer she joined Duncan Sheik on the road and sustained a demanding concert itinerary through 2007. After relocating from California to New York City in 2008, she began work on her fourth album, Inland Territory, which appeared on Zoë/Rounder in 2009.