Fan favorite Pink Martini kicks off MIAC season with cosmopolitan flair
“Pink Martini is a rollicking around-the-world musical adventure... If the United Nations had a house band in 1962, hopefully we’d be that band.” – Thomas Lauderdale, bandleader/pianist
Erie’s favorite globe-trotting “little orchestra,” Pink Martini, brings its 30th-anniversary tour to Mercyhurst University’s Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m.
Led by pianist Thomas Lauderdale and featuring the captivating vocals of China Forbes, Pink Martini boasts a multilingual repertoire and a sound that mixes classical, tango, samba, pop, swing, and jazz.
Lauderdale founded 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. A year later, he asked his former Harvard classmate, singer China Forbes, to join the ensemble. They began writing songs together, and their first song, “Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler),” became an overnight sensation in France and to this day remains a mantra (“Je ne veux pas travailler” means "I don't want to work") for striking French workers.
After making its European debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and its orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony in 1998, the band has gone on to play with more than 50 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, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London.
Says Lauderdale, “We’re very much an American band, but we spend a lot of time abroad and therefore have the incredible diplomatic opportunity to represent a broader, more inclusive America... the America which remains the most heterogeneously populated country in the world, composed of people of every country, every language, every religion.”
Pink Martini has released 11 studio albums on its own independent label, Heinz Records (named after Lauderdale’s dog), selling over three million albums worldwide.
Music lovers and fans will want to get tickets early for this highly anticipated evening of genre-defying songs that traverse time and geography.
Tickets, priced $30-$55, can be purchased online at miac.universitytickets.com, over the phone at 814-824-3000, or in person at the Mary D’Angelo Performing Arts Center box office (Tues.-Thurs., noon-5 p.m.). Each order is subject to a $4 per ticket processing fee, regardless of purchase or payment method.
This performance is made possible through the generous support of Make It Fabulous Catering & Special Events, Cheryl Ward, Lincoln Recycling, and Oliver’s Rooftop, and the 2024-2025 MIAC Live season is sponsored by Alan & Patti Schaal and VNET, with additional support from the Greater Erie Alliance for Equality and the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority.