Pink Martini sells out Bucharest stop

Pink Martini’s fourth concert in Romania this weekend was a sold-out event, with an audience of 4,000 people applauding every song of the orchestra for more than two hours at Sala Palatului.

The ‘little orchestra’ from Portland made a new stop to Bucharest as part of promoting their newest album A Retrospective. The latest musical effort of the band is an overview of the band’s 16- year- career and comprises some of their best rated songs such as Una Notte a Napoli, Hang On Little Tomato, Donde Estas Yolanda?, Hey Eugene, Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler), Lilly, Que Sera Sera or Amado Mio.

Their sound combines Cuban Jazz with chamber music, Brazilian marches and film soundtracks. The 12-piece orchestra has also a multi-linguistic repertoire that takes you from the great metropolis to the ports of Istanbul or the Brazilian beaches.

At the concert, the band played songs in ten different languages: English, Spanish, French, Jewish, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Turkish, Croatian and also Romanian. Thomas Lauderdale (piano), Storm Large (vocalist), Philip Baker (drummer), Gavin Bondy (trumpet), Jeffrey Budin (trombone), Nicholas Crosa (violin), Brian Davis (percussion), Daniel Faehnle (guitar), Anthony Jones (drums), Timothy Nishimoto (percussion & backup vocal) and Derek Rieth (percussion) made a cover after the Romanian song written by Anton Pann, ” Pana cand nu te iubeam” (Until I didn’t love you), in interpretation of Maria Tanase.

The leader of the orchestra, pianist Thomas Lauderdale declared that he has a collection of discs with Gheorghe Zamfir, Maria Tanase and George Enescu. “I’m singing in 14 different languages, but Romanian is one of the most beautiful languages I’ve ever heard! And I also like how my name sounds in Romanian – furtuna mare (Storm Large)” the vocalist said at the press conference.