Vienna Teng is a singer/songwriter/pianist from the San Francisco Bay Area.
In a little over a year, Vienna has been featured on Late Night with David Letterman (who said "There's not a dud on this album."), CNN NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and NPR Weekend Edition. This is her first album, and it is quite impressive in its maturity, production, and variety of styles.
Vienna's voice is expressive and warm; her lyrics are intelligent and moving; her piano playing is nuanced and subtle.
The styles on Waking Hour range from pop and folk to soft rock and Latin. Still, each song on the album flows into the next, and they all live comfortably together. Some are accompanied by lush orchestrations including cello, bass, drums, guitars, or violin. Others are solo piano-and-voice pieces that are truly moving. The Tower and Gravity are powerful, emotional songs that carry the listener into the album. The layered vocals on Between and Soon Love Soon are absolutely stunning. Daughter is touching; Eric's Song is quiet and intimate; Lullaby For A Stormy Night is comforting. Every song on Waking Hour is presented just as it should be.
Vienna Teng has been compared to Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, and Tori Amos. Vienna has the talent and integrity to easily stand on her own in the company of these great artists. Listen to this fantastic album and let it renew your faith in the ability of music to move your soul.
Thanks to B. Olding for this review.
Waking Hour is Vienna Teng's first album. Originally released independently in 2001, the album was re-released in 2002 with minor modifications after Teng signed with small label Virt Records.
The album was released in the United Kingdom by Rounder Europe in 2006 under license from Virt Records.
References
Category:2001 albums
Category:Debut albums
Category:Vienna Teng albums
it:Waking Hour
This text has been derived from Waking Hour (album) on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0Artist/Band Information
Vienna Teng (b. October 3, 1978, Saratoga, California) is a Taiwanese American pianist and singer-songwriter based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her birth name is Cynthia Yih Shih. 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. Teng is a baseline alto, but sings over a wide range.
Career
Vienna Teng 2.jpgthumb180pxleftTeng performing at the Independent in San Francisco
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 CBS's Late Show with David Letterman in January 2003. She has since made appearances on the CBS Saturday Early Show, National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown and The Wayne Brady Show, and opened concerts for Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, 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.
Vienna Teng5 - Joe's Pub NYC 4-7-07 Photo by Anthony Pepitone.jpgthumb180pxrightTeng performing at Joe's Pub in 2007.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.
Teng won the 9th annual Independent Music Awards Vox Pop vote for best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Album "Inland Territory".
On March 30, 2010, Teng announced to her fans that she had been accepted into the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan to study sustainable enterprise. Teng has stated that she will continue to compose music, although she will not be touring as frequently.
A few days later (April 13), she also announced, through her Twitter that she would be releasing a live album, later revealed to be entitled "The Moment Always Vanishing".
In 2010, Teng was named a "Citizen of the Next Century" by Future-ish.
Music
Although nearly all of Teng's recordings are in English, the hidden track "Green Island Serenade" on Warm Strangers is performed in Mandarin Chinese. The song is a 1950's Taiwanese classic performed by the famous Teresa Teng.
Discography
* 2001: Waking Hour - self-produced
* 2002: Waking Hour - Virt Records
* 2004: Warm Strangers - Virt Records
* 2006: Dreaming Through the Noise - Zoë/Rounder
* 2009: Inland Territory - Zoë/Rounder
* 2009: The Moment Always Vanishing - self-produced live album recorded at Joe's Pub in New York City on December 20, 2009
References
This text has been derived from Vienna Teng on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
