Review: PINK MARTINI Celebrates Their 30th Anniversary With a Blowout at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall’s 2024-25 Originals series continued on Friday November 1, 2024 with a rousing concert by Pink Martini. The night celebrated the band’s 30th anniversary, and they pulled out all the stops for the show. The Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage was crowded with members of the nine-piece band and guest vocalists. Throughout the night, they sang, played their heart out, and showed off their multilingual skills and broad range. The fun, interactive concert encouraged the audience to dance and clap along, even starting a dancing contest at one point to win a signed poster by the band, and ending the night with a Carnegie Hall conga line where they invited guests to get out of their seats and weave through the aisles in a giant dance line. I’d never heard any of Pink Martini’s music before the night, but I can say I’ve never seen a concert quite like this one. It was completely joyful, ever-changing, and full of blazing hot musical talent.

Thomas M. Lauderdale founded the band to fill a gap: there was little good music to play at political fundraisers and events. Thirty years later, and the rest is history. The group has a huge following, and has amassed plenty of hit songs, many of which they played during the night, including their earliest hit, “Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler),” which topped the charts in France and won the Victoire for Original Song of the Year. (And, apparently, led to a lawsuit.)

Each of the many vocalists shared a bit about their history with the group: co-lead singers China Forbes and  Storm Large, who showed off their belting prowess which each taking the lead on a handful of songs; and frequent guest singers Ari Shapiro, host of NPR’s All Things Considered, Edna Vazquez, Alba Clemente, and America’s Got Talent’s Jimmie Herrod, who wowed the crowd with his soulful “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Special guest singer Shoshana Bean, who is currently starring on Broadway in Hell’s Kitchen, joined the group towards the end of the concert to show off her stuff. It shows just how wide the band’s range is that they can gracefully move from Broadway to grand orchestral numbers to world music and back again without missing a beat. They played such a wide range of music and packed so much in to the nearly three hour run time that it’s hard to do it justice with a review and I can’t touch on everything. China Forbes played a lovely song “Full Circle” from her new solo album. She spoke about how much it meant to her to be singing at Carnegie Hall again (the group first played there in 2007). Towards the end, the band did one final rousing instrumental number before ushering special guest Shoshana Bean onto the stage. The guest choice was extra special because she went to high school with Ari Shapiro, so the two are old friends. She sang an absolutely marvelous “Don’t Rain on My Parade” backed by the band, as well as an impressive “The Minute Waltz.” The night was silly, fun, packed to the brills with amazing music. In one of the most technically impressive numbers, they sped through samples of songs in 22 different languages in only 15 minutes as dancers bearing flags from each country filled the stage.

There's clearly a warm following surrounding Pink Martini – in the audience was a pair of super fans who had attended hundreds of their shows, and they also invited a supporter up to play percussion for one number, whose name I unfortunately didn't catch. I don’t know if the timing of the show right before the election was intentional or just a coincidence, but Pink Martini felt like a fitting choice to provide a little much-needed distraction and hope before that looming night. They reminded us that no matter what happened at the election, we should never forget to sing and dance.

The show featured musicians Nicholas Crosa on violin, Phil Baker on bass (who also writes songs for the group), Thomas Barber on trumpet, Antonis Andreou on trombone, Dan Faehnle on guitar, Timothy Nishimoto on vocals and percussion, Brian Davis and Reinhardt Melz on drums and percussion, and Miguel Bernal on congas and percussion.

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Learn more about the band on their website at pinkmartini.com

Carnegie Hall’s Originals series continues on February 14 with Jinkx Monsoon and then March 27 with Cécile McLorin Salvant. Tickets are available here.

Header photo credit: Fadi Kheir

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