Pink Martini’s founder put political dreams on ice to make music

Thomas Lauderdale loved politics and wanted to become mayor of his hometown after graduating from college.

He started attending political fundraisers, but he hated the music at these events.

“All you heard were really bad DJs and rock music that was too loud,” said Lauderdale, whom we spoke to by phone from his hometown of Portland, Ore.

So Lauderdale postponed his political career and instead formed Pink Martini, the 12-member ensemble that appears this weekend with the Omaha Symphony.

Pink Martini is a suave salon orchestra that plays everything from torch songs to light classical pieces.

It’s the kind of band you might expect to hear in an old Humphrey Bogart movie like “Casablanca.”

Certainly, the group’s lead singer, China Forbes, helps give the group its Morocco-like international flavor. On the band’s latest album, “Splendor in the Grass,” she sings in English, Neopolitan, Italian, Spanish and French.

“People think of us as a world music group,” said Lauderdale. “What we do is actually more akin to jazz.”

Lauderdale met Forbes at Harvard University, where he was majoring in history and she was studying literature. Both later claimed that they mostly socialized. Late at night, they’d sneak into campus practice rooms, where they’d play Puccini arias and campy Barbra Streisand songs as loud as possible.

After school, Lauderdale went back to Oregon, where he formed Pink Martini in 1994. He persuaded Forbes to join the group and, in his words, “tricked her into moving from New York City to Portland.”

Pink Martini now keeps busy recording and playing with orchestras around the world. Lauderdale, however, says he hasn’t given up his political ambitions.

“I still think I may run for mayor,” he said. “I just have a few more music projects to finish first.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

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