About Vienna Teng
Cynthia Yih Shih , better known by her stage name Vienna Teng, is an American pianist and singer-songwriter who now lives in Washington, DC. Teng has released five studio albums: Waking Hour , Warm Strangers , Dreaming Through the Noise , Inland Territory and Aims . She has also released one live album, The Moment Always Vanishing , on which she is double-billed with her percussionist, Alex Wong.
Teng's musical style incorporates folk, pop, classical piano, and a cappella.
A native of Saratoga, California, she began playing classical piano at the age of five. Both her parents came from Taiwan. She was salutatorian at Saratoga High School. In 1996, 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 , intending to distribute her music on campus. Many of these recordings were eventually released in her début 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 National Public Radio's Weekend Edition in January 2003, followed shortly thereafter by CBS's Late Show with David Letterman. She has since made appearances on the CBS Saturday Early Show, CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown and The Wayne Brady Show, and opened concerts for Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, India.Arie, Brandi Carlile, Sarah Harmer and Marc Cohn. Although nearly all of Teng's recordings are in English, Warm Strangers features a hidden cover of "Green Island Serenade", a 1950s Taiwanese classic performed in Mandarin Chinese.
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