Now in its 31st year, the unstoppable engine of joy that is Pink Martini continues to bring founder Thomas Lauderdale’s mission of multi-cultural connection and inclusion to concert stages on six continents. Presenting a mélange of catchy old-fashioned pop, global color, foot-tapping big band sound, and Hollywood glamour, Oregon’s most famous “little orchestra” performs music intended to appeal to everyone, regardless of age or background. Performing with a number of iconic voices including the band’s first lead singer China Forbes, the inimitable Storm Large, NPR’s dashing Ari Shapiro, the soulful Edna Vazquez, America’s Got Talent finalist Jimmie Herrod, and international singing sensation Meow Meow, the “little orchestra” has played on legendary concert stages around the world, including the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Royal Albert Hall in London, and Bercy Arena in Paris. Pink Martini has released over a dozen albums on its in-house label Heinz Records, including the new EP Bella ciao, featuring the anti-fascist title song sung by Storm Large. “This is rich, hugely approachable music, utterly cosmopolitan yet utterly unpretentious. And it seems to speak to just about everybody … from grade-schoolers to grandmothers to the young and hip and beautiful.” –The Washington Post

Storm Large: musician, actor, playwright, author, awesome. She shot to national prominence in 2006 as a finalist on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova, where despite having been eliminated in the week before the finale, Storm built a fan base that follows her around the world to this day. More recently, Storm appeared on the 2021 season of America’s Got Talent. Storm made her debut as guest vocalist with the band Pink Martini in April 2011, singing four sold-out concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Since then, she has toured with the band both nationally and internationally, and she is featured on their album Get Happy. On the 10th anniversary of its premiere, Storm reprised her one-woman autobiographical musical memoir Crazy Enough at La Jolla Music Society and Portland Center Stage in 2019. The original
production ran for an unprecedented 21 sold out weeks. Storm has headlined with orchestras around the world, including the Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Detroit, Toronto, and BBC Symphonies, the NY Pops and Philly Pops; and the Louisville Orchestra, with which she recorded the 2017 album All In for the Decca Gold label. Storm continues to tour concert halls across the country with her band Le Bonheur. In the fall of 2014, Storm & Le Bonheur released a record designed to capture their sublime and subversive
interpretations of the American Songbook. Entitled simply Le Bonheur and released on Pink Martini’s Heinz Records, the recording is a collection of tortured and titillating love songs: beautiful, familiar, yet twisted … much like the lady herself. Storm has sung with k.d. lang, Kirill Gerstein, John Doe, Rufus Wainwright, and George Clinton. Alongside Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, Storm joined Michael Feinstein as special guest with the Pasadena Pops. Her memoir, Crazy Enough, was released by Simon and Schuster in 2012,
named Oprah’s Book of the Week, and awarded the 2013 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.