Pink Martini is a 13-member "little orchestra" from Portland, Oregon, forme… Read Full Bio ↴Pink Martini is a 13-member "little orchestra" from Portland, Oregon, formed in 1994 by pianist Thomas Lauderdale. They draw inspiration from music from all over the world – crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop.

Pink Martini has twelve instrumentalists (and sometimes travels with string sections), and performs its multilingual repertoire on concert stages and with symphony orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Australia and New Zealand and North America. Pink Martini made its European debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and its orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony in 1998 under the direction of Norman Leyden. Since then, the band has gone on to play with over 30 orchestras around the world, including multiple engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Boston Pops, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. Other appearances include the grand opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with return sold-out engagements for New Year’s Eve 2003, 2004 & 2008; two sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall; the opening party of the remodeled Museum of Modern Art in NYC; the Governor’s Ball at the 80th Annual Academy Awards in 2008; and the opening of the 2008 Sydney Festival in Australia.

Lauderdale met China Forbes, Pink Martini’s lead vocalist, at Harvard. He was studying history and literature while she was studying English literature and painting. Late at night, they would break into the lower common room in their college dormitory and sing arias by Puccini and Verdi – and the occasional campy Barbra Streisand cover –thus sealing their creative collaboration. Three years after graduating, Lauderdale called Forbes who was living in New York City, where she’d been writing songs and playing guitar in her own folk-rock project, and asked her to join Pink Martini. They began to write songs together for the band. Their first song “Sympathique”– with the chorus “Je ne veux pas travailler” (”I don’t want to work”) – became an overnight sensation in France, and was even nominated for “Song of the Year” at France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards. Forbes, though fluent only in English, sings in 15 different languages.

Pink Martini’s debut album Sympathique was released independently in 1997 on the band’s own label Heinz Records (named after Lauderdale’s dog), and quickly became an international phenomenon, garnering the group nominations for “Song of the Year” and “Best New Artist” in France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2000.

In October 2004, the group released its second album, Hang on Little Tomato.

In May 2007, it released its third album, Hey Eugene!.

A fourth studio album, Splendor in the Grass, followed on October 27, 2009.
Sympathique, Hang on Little Tomato and Hey Eugene! have all gone gold in France, Canada, Greece and Turkey; collectively, Pink Martini's records have sold more than two million copies worldwide.

On New Year's Eve 2005, Pink Martini performed live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. This performance was aired live on National Public Radio's Toast of the Nation, and in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting was recorded for a live DVD and later broadcast on US public broadcasting and French television.[citation needed] The DVD has been rereleased to retail as Discover the World: Live in Concert, featuring not only the full concert, but several vignettes and a short documentary of the band's history.

The band has collaborated and performed with Jimmy Scott, Carol Channing, Henri Salvador, Jane Powell, Chavela Vargas, Georges Moustaki, Michael Feinstein, DJ Dimitri from Paris, clarinetist and conductor Norman Leyden, Hiroshi Wada, DJ Johnny Dynell and several drag queens from New York City, among others. On June 1, 2007, the band appeared on the long-running BBC Two Later with Jools Holland TV music program. On June 14, 2007, Pink Martini performed on Late Show with David Letterman, performing "Hey Eugene".

Pink Martini played Walt Disney Concert Hall on New Year's Eve for the first two years it was open (2003/4 and 2004/5). They returned to play NYE there again in 2008/9.

In May 2009, the band recorded three concerts with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Carlos Kalmar for the band’s fifth album … a symphonic record which is slated for a 2011 release.

Pink Martini songs appear in such films as In the Cut, Nurse Betty, Josie and the Pussycats, Tortilla Soup, Shanghai Kiss, Mary and Max, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith and have been used on television shows such as Dead Like Me, The Sopranos and The West Wing, among others.[citation needed] Their song "Una notte a Napoli" is an integral part of the Italian movie Mine Vaganti (2010), by the Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek. The song "No Hay Problema" is included as background/setup music for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and was also used as the background/setup music for an early build of Windows Longhorn, now known as Windows Vista.[citation needed]
In February 2011, the group's lead singer, China Forbes, recorded a video greeting to the European Space Agency's Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri, on board the International Space Station. The astronauts were preparing to oversee the docking of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo vessel, Johannes Kepler, which took place at 17:08 CET on 24 February. The greeting was set to the sound track of Dosvedanya Mio Bombino - one of Pink Martini's signature songs - and was mixed with footage of the actual docking.

In November 2011, they played at the Balboa Theater with the Bonita Vista High School band, Club Blue.

Auld Lang Syne
Pink Martini Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet

For auld lang syne

[Foreign Content]

Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir
Sans espoir de retour
Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir
De nous revoir un jour

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir, mes frères
Ce n'est qu'un au revoir
Oui, nous nous reverrons, mes chers
Ce n'est qu'un au revoir

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Overall Meaning

The song "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem that was written by Robert Burns in 1788. The phrase "auld lang syne" translates to "old long since" or "days gone by," and the song reflects on the memories of the past and the connection between people despite time and distance. The first verse sets the tone for the rest of the song, asking whether old friendships should be forgotten and left behind. The second verse introduces the idea of sharing a cup of kindness, a symbol of the generosity and goodwill that can unite people.

The third verse is in French and acknowledges the bittersweet nature of saying goodbye. It asks whether it is necessary to separate without hope of returning or seeing each other again. The response is that it is not a permanent goodbye, but rather just "au revoir," or "until we meet again." The final verse repeats the first, with the line "and auld lang syne" serving as a reminder of the theme of the song: the importance of remembering old acquaintances and connections.

Overall, the lyrics of "Auld Lang Syne" emphasize the lasting value of friendships and the shared experiences that bind people together, even when separated by time and distance.

Line by Line Meaning

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Should we forget about old friends?

And never brought to mind
And never think about them again?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Should we forget about old friends?

And days of auld lang syne
And the memories of days gone by?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For the sake of old times, my dear,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
We'll share a drink of friendship,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir
Do we have to leave without hope?

Sans espoir de retour
Without hope of returning

Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir
Do we have to leave without hope?

De nous revoir un jour
Of seeing each other again?

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir, mes frères
It's just a farewell, my brothers,

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir
It's just a farewell

Oui, nous nous reverrons, mes chers
Yes, we will see each other again, my dear

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir
It's just a farewell

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Should we forget about old friends?

And never brought to mind
And never think about them again?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
Should we forget about old friends?

And auld lang syne
And the memories of days gone by?

For auld lang syne, my dear
For the sake of old times, my dear,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
We'll share a drink of friendship,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

For auld lang syne, my dear
For the sake of old times, my dear,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

We'll take a cup of kindness yet
We'll share a drink of friendship,

For auld lang syne
For the sake of old times

Contributed by Hudson K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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Most interesting comment from YouTube:

Carmen Andrews [Nevada Learning Academy]

5y↑3

The song itself is Scottish, but in the middle they do have verses in Arabic per the site - and yet I think this is actually in French?
"Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir

Sans espoir de retour

Faut-il nous quitter sans espoir

De nous revoir un jour

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir, mes frères

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir

Oui, nous nous reverrons, mes chers

Ce n'est qu'un au revoir" (from azlyrics)