A friend went to an exclusive private school with China Forbes, who, as a Harvard undergrad, met Thomas Lauderdale, who founded the group Pink Martini in Portland, Oregon in 1994 “to play political fundraisers for progressive causes such as civil rights, the environment, affordable housing, and public broadcasting.” China Forbes is now the lead singer and the group came to Boston Symphony Hall the other night to play to a full house.
The group itself looks like a prep school Class of 1992 reunion. The members are all thirtysomethings and have names such as “Phil Baker”, “Robert Taylor”, and “Brian Davis”. The crowd was remarkably white, even by Boston standards, and averaged around age 55.
A cornerstone of Pink Martini is nostalgia for things that they were all too young to have experienced, e.g., songs from movies of the 1930s and 1950s. No distinction is made among cultures or languages. The first half of the concert included songs in Spanish, French, English, Japanese, Italian, Portugese, and Arabic. The group played one of their own songs, whose lyrics were in French (even the French hardly write songs in French anymore, do they?).
Despite the personal acquaintance and the amazing technical skill of the instrumentalists, my friend became bored with the concert and we escaped at intermission. A Cuban singing Cuban songs would have been more interesting to us, or a Portuguese singing in Portuguese, or an old person singing old songs, etc.
The white middle-aged crowd loved it, though. Maybe you have to listen to NPR and watch PBS for a few thousand hours then fret about affordable housing before this music hits home?
[One might note that the Boston Symphony Orchestra players are too young to have attended the premieres of the pieces that they typically play. What is the difference between the BSO and Pink Martini? The BSO folks train for decades to work within one continuous musical tradition. They don’t put on a party hat and say “Now I am a Cuban.”]
Hi Phil, Just curious, what does “remarkably white” mean? Living in the south I couldn’t get away with that statement without being castigated. Regards, Mark
“Remarkably white” means that we didn’t see a black face in the audience nor any Asians either. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/2507000.html shows that 25% of Bostonians are black and 7.5% Asian (probably has grown some since these 2000 data were collected). Pink Martini’s schtick is diversity and cross-cultural connections, so it is kind of ironic that their music appeals to an exclusively white middle-aged audience.
Hi Phil.
You are hilarious!
You forgot to mention the other names, like mine, Paloma Griffin (Filipina), or China Forbes (half black, half white), or Pansy Chang (Chinese), or Timothy Nishimoto (Japanese), or Martin ZarZar (Peruvian). Thomas Lauderdale is asian. Hmm. Remarkably un-white.
I laughed when I saw the prep-school comment, that was cute.
I trained just like those BSO players. I have played the violin since I was 2 years old, and went to the Eastman School of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory.
I won a national audition in 1999 to play with the Oregon Symphony and just resigned this year. There were many reasons, number one being the amount of fun I have in Pink Martini playing music that is culturally relevant all over the world. I spent 7 years in the Oregon Symphony and have played in orchestras all over the country, so I’ve spent a lot of time staring at remarkably white crowds. Pink audiences are anything but all white! They typically range in age from 3-83, and they *always* dance and sing and kiss and have a wonderful time, which I never saw in symphony audiences anywhere.
I’m so sorry that you were bored and had to leave.
Warm Regards,
Paloma Griffin