Vienna Teng (3 October 1978) is an American singer-songwriter based in San Francisco. Her musical style, a mixture of folk and pop, draws on the influences of performers such as Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. She has released three albums, Waking Hour (2002), Warm Strangers (2004), and Dreaming Through The Noise (2006).
Teng, who is Taiwanese-American, took her stage name "Vienna" from the Austrian city famous for its musical history. She began studying classical piano at the age of 5, and continued while she was working toward her degree in computer science at Stanford University, which she completed in 2000. She began recording the songs for Waking Hour at Stanford's CCRMA studios while a student, to distribute on campus to students who would crowd around her at the piano on campus. After working as a software engineer for Cisco Systems for two years, continuing to write and perform in her free time, she signed with Virt Records and quit Cisco to focus on her musical career.
Her first major national exposure came with a 2003 appearance on the David Letterman show; she has also 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 for performances by Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne and Marc Cohn. Her debut album, Waking Hour, peaked at #5 on the Amazon.com bestseller list; her second album, Warm Strangers, reached as high as #2. In 2006, she co-headlined with Duncan Sheik and opened for Madeleine Peyroux.
Although the majority of her recordings are in English, the hidden track 12, "Green Island Serenade" on her Warm Strangers album is performed in Mandarin Chinese.
In 2006, the song "Between" from the album Waking Hour was played over the closing credits on episode 2-03 of the Discovery Channel show "The Deadliest Catch"
She has contributed her vocals to the track "One 2 One" on an album by hip-hop duo Magnetic North.
Teng signed with the Zoë/Rounder record label in 2006.
Trivia
Discography
- Waking Hour (2002)
- Warm Strangers (2004)
- Dreaming Through the Noise (2006)