July 28, 2025
For General Release:
Pink Martini’s lead singer China Forbes will take a two-year sabbatical from touring with the band, beginning September 2025. Forbes and Pink Martini have toured extensively this past year, celebrating the band’s 30th anniversary. Forbes’s final concerts will be Friday, August 23 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and Saturday, August 24 at Humphreys by the Bay in San Diego.
Forbes says, “After three decades of traveling the world with Pink Martini, I have decided to take some time off. I’m going to spend the next two years at home, enjoying life with my son while he finishes high school. I will miss touring with my Pink Martini family, delivering this music to our amazing fans in the most wonderful venues. It has been a total joy and I look forward to seeing you all in the future!”
Forbes has been the voice of Pink Martini since 1995, when founder Thomas Mack Lauderdale, her college friend from Harvard, flew her from New York City to sing with the band for four performances, including the opening of the Rose Quarter (Moda Center) in Portland. After commuting back-and-forth for three years, she permanently relocated to Portland to be the full time lead singer of the band in 1998.
Inspired by Donna Summer to become a singer, Forbes started writing original songs at age of 14. She encouraged a reluctant Lauderdale to write songs for Pink Martini. Together, they penned many of the band’s most popular songs, including “Sympathique”, also known as “Je ne veux pas travailler” (which was nominated for Song of the Year at the French Grammy’s), “Let’s never stop falling in love”, “Lilly”, “Una Notte a Napoli”, and “The Gardens of Sampson & Beasley”. Forbes wrote the party anthem “Hey Eugene” before joining Pink Martini, and the song remains one of the band’s biggest hits.
Forbes is beloved by audiences and critics alike. Over the past 30 years, she and the band have performed at legendary venues on nearly every continent, including the Sydney Opera House, the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, and Bercy Arena in Paris, among others. She and the band have performed with 75 orchestras and appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. In 2022, Forbes was awarded the Ella Fitzgerald Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival. The New York Times wrote, in 2006, “Ms. Forbes is an unpretentious, pitch-perfect chanteuse who can be breathy and girlish or sultry… she tempers heartbreak with savoir-faire.”
Pink Martini will continue touring during Forbes’s sabbatical, performing with many of the band’s collaborators and guest singers, including Storm Large, National Public Radio’s Ari Shapiro, Edna Vazquez and Jimmie Herrod. The band will often feature special guest stars, as well as perhaps an occasional surprise appearance by China Forbes herself!
Pink Martini’s bandleader Thomas Lauderdale says, “China Forbes has been the voice and the face of Pink Martini for 30 years. From her unbelievable ability to sing in 30 languages to her intelligence and humor (she would be great on Saturday Night Live!), it’s no surprise that China is beloved all around the world. It makes a lot of sense for her to take this time off — we’ve been on the road for decades now, and we’re all a little tuckered out! We look forward to her return in Fall 2027.”