Thomas Lauderdale Tours Portland from Portland Monthly on Vimeo.

Good morning. My name is Whitney Popp and I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Jordan. I was fortunate enough to see Pink Martini in concert when they came to Amman on the 4th. I’m not sure who to e-mail, but I was hoping you would be able to pass this along to the band-

Your music was the conclusion to my 2 year service. I have been working in a small village helping children with special needs and occasionally visit Amman. A dear friend of mine who is currently serving in Iraq had come to visit and we both cannot express our gratitude toward your talent, love of music and amazing performance. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that both of us have been struggling while serving so far from home. I am the only American and English speaker in my village and to hear music not only in English but so many languages was such a treat! After hearing your song in Arabic I went onto itunes, downloaded it and ran over to my neighbors. I explained how you all are from near my home (I’m from Northern California) and that without having Arabic as your native language you could sing like that. They loved it so much that I put it one woman’s cellphone and now your music is being passed around a small village in northern Jordan, pretty amazing, huh? When you sang, “Over the Valley,” I cried. Though I do not know which valley you were speaking of it made me think of one near my hometown. After being in olive orchards for 2 years, listening to such a beautiful song about home moved me.

I want to thank you for a wonderful concert and to express how much it meant to me. It is hard to be an American here, especially a young American woman without her family. To see all of you, women and men together, enjoying life and blowing away the audience made me proud. At times I want to stand up, turn around and tell everyone, “You see! This is America! All races, genders and everything else blending together to make something beautiful!” But, seeing as it was your concert I decided it best to stay silent (and I’m pretty sure security would have something to say to me if I did). I hope that you all had a good time in Jordan and were able to see some of the sites. I will be home at the end of this month and look forward to seeing you all in concert again. Shokran khthiir (Thank you so much).

So without further ado, the grand prize–a trip for two to see the band perform at the Nice Jazz Festival (or $2500 cash)–is awarded to…

Kate Reynolds & Erika Valenciana of Portland, OR for “Ou est ma tete?”

“Ninna Nanna” by Pablo Fernandez from Los Angeles, CA.

“Over The Valley” by Gary San Angel from Philadelphia, PA.

In February we asked our fans to dust off their video cameras and create an inspired music video for one of six songs from Splendor In The Grass with the grand prize winner receiving a trip for two to see the band perform live in France at the Nice Jazz Festival (or $2500 cash). We were so overwhelmed and amazed at both the quantity and quality of the submissions that we are happily having a tremendously difficult time choosing our winners. So we have expanded the prize field to five videos and we are going to announce the winning videos one per day starting Monday June 14, culminating with our grand prize, to be awarded Friday June 18. Keep your eyes and ears attuned to FACEBOOK, TWITTER and our music video contest page each day next week to see the results!