Vienna Teng - Famous Chinese Americans

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, " Moment Always Vanishing" (2010).

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 .

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Career

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.

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".

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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.

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Discography