Vienna Teng on Songwriting, Climate Action & Few of a Kind’s New Album
This transcript is from my interview with Vienna Teng on my podcast Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman.
This link takes you to the podcast, video, and show notes for all the links: Vienna Teng's albums, website, Songwriter podcast, linked episodes with Gabriel Kahane, Jean Rohe, Ida Gillner, Fern Lindzon and Diane Nalini and my Newsletter, Merch store and how you can support this project.
Vienna Teng:
One of the things that I've always regretted about the nature of playing a show is that people remain mostly anonymous and I am deeply curious about the people who come to see performances. Occasionally in a merch table autograph line, someone will just mention something about themselves and I'm like, "That's incredible. That's a whole world where I would love to know more about. " And so in these workshops, we would get to talk more about, well, what's going on in your life and what are some of your priorities and how might climate action kind of sync up with all of that? And it's just really incredible to hear who I'm making music for. And it makes performing and writing much more meaningful now.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you’re listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests.It was so inspiring to have this conversation with the multi-talented singer-songwriter and pianist Vienna Teng . In this episode we’re featuring the band Few of a Kind’s new album, a beautiful collaboration with Vienna, Brandon Ridenour, Ben Russell, Yousif Sheronick, and Andrew Gutauskas. Vienna takes us inside their creative process with excerpts from each track. She also reflects on what truly makes a great song, how her identity evolved with parenthood, and how she has connected with audiences through her climate action workshops. Vienna also shared insights into two other brilliant recent projects, her unique album We’ve Got You and “The Riversitter” after Dave Eggers’ “The Museum of Rain”.You’ll hear the charming story of how she actually found her stage name, some highlights including opening for Joan Baez, performing on the Late Show with David Letterman and especially what it felt like to return to touring and recording after a ten-year hiatus after working in environmental sustainability. You can watch the video on my YouTube or listen to the podcast, and I’ve also linked the transcript.It’s a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. Have a look at the show notes of this episode on my website, where you’ll find all the links, including different ways to support this podcast, and other episodes you’ll enjoy!
Hey, Vienna, thanks so much for joining me here today.
Vienna Teng:
Thank you for having me.
Leah Roseman:
So many people are fans of yours and are so happy you have these new albums out the last couple of years. So we'll be focusing a lot on your newest release, Few of a Kind. But I thought we'd just circle back a little bit because not everybody knows you who's listening. And I was curious about your stage name because Teng is an homage to the Taiwanese singer, Theresa Teng?
Vienna Teng:
I would love for that to be true.
Leah Roseman:
No, not true?
Vienna Teng:
It's a much better story than the real one, which is, I was just a pretentious kid and I wanted aliases for anything I might pursue. And then I came up with the name Vienna, my birth name is Cynthia. And then my family name is actually She, Americanized "Shee". And I just didn't like how Vienna She sounded. So I just went through ... I think I went to a school that actually had a lot of East Asian descent kids. And so I just looked through the school directory and tried on last names until I found Teng. And then afterward, people said, "Oh, Theresa Tang, that must be who you're paying homage to. " I'm like, "Well, that would be a good story." And I would like to say yes to that, but the truth is that I tried on names from a school directory.
Leah Roseman:
That is so much of a better story. And the fact that Google came up with this answer is a bit disturbing, actually.
Vienna Teng:
Well, I think enough people have speculated that that's what it is that you know. Now the predictive text machine learning networks of the world have thought that maybe that's the real story.
Leah Roseman:
But if we include this in this episode, then it's going to strengthen that. So maybe we should-
Vienna Teng:
That's right. Now there will be conflicting reports.
Leah Roseman:
So maybe we shouldn't even include this, even though it's a good story. What do you think?
Vienna Teng:
No, no, no. I'm totally fine with whatever ... I like the truth being out there.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Okay, cool. Well, so you have taken a hiatus from more of a music career, but you had early success, like your first album when you were 24, you appeared on the David Letterman Show and you kind of had this ascent to being super well known. I'm curious, what was that like at that age?
Vienna Teng:
I really, I don't know. At the time I enjoyed it and I felt super lucky that it was happening because I was convinced that I would have to kind of labor in obscurity for a long time, just kind of like earn, pay my dues and to be suddenly put on NPR Weekend Edition and to be talking to Liane Hanson and to then appear on the late show with David Letterman, like all kind of before I was out of playing open mics and coffee shops was pretty crazy. And I remained super grateful for it. And it's also hilarious to look back at footage of that time and sort of see how much of a deer in headlights I kind of was, because I was working during the day as a software engineer. I kind of looked like one, stereotypically. And so I was still getting used to this idea that I was presenting a public image and that's still not kind of where my instincts go.
I just primarily think of myself as kind of a songwriter and a person trying to connect in a more intimate way with people. So I really was grateful for it. I thought it was incredible and I really appreciated that I had such a big audience and platform to make music from, from so early on.
Leah Roseman:
So you went to Stanford initially for computer science training. Did your colleagues like at Cisco know about your songwriting?
Vienna Teng:
I don't think they actually knew much about my music pursuits until after the kind of national coverage. And then I was playing a local show that was completely sold out and was written up by the local paper, the San Jose Mercury News. And so they read that paper and so they kind of came in and they said, "Wait, that's you, isn't it? " Like, "Really?" I had no idea. So that was really fun.
Leah Roseman:
I guess the stage name as well, right? Yeah.
Vienna Teng:
Right. So I don't know that they necessarily connected dots until they saw my photo in the local paper and they said, "That person seems really familiar. That seems the person a few cubicles down, so I got to see what this Vienna Teng name is all about. " And it's really heartwarming to see some of those folks that I worked with in the other days still come to shows sometimes and they said like, "Hi, it's great to see you. " And we catch up and talk about all the life that has happened in between.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. So Few of a Kind, I'm assuming you guys are still finding opportunities to play together and maybe have future projects?
Vienna Teng:
Absolutely. I feel like Few of A Kind is a band that I kind of stumbled into or like was invited to and I just was thrilled that they would ask me. Few of a Kind is sort of an evolution from another group called Founders, which is an incredible ensemble as you probably know. And Brandon and Ben, the two folks who really kind of started the whole thing felt like, "What if we mix things up again and add sort of new voices to the mix?" And when they first approached me, they said, "We'd like you to be part of this band." And I said, "You know I don't really play piano at the level that you guys play your instruments, that I'm not conservatory trained and able to sight read and do all this stuff that you guys can do. " And so I was a little bit intimidated to be honest.
And they said, "No, we know you're a singer songwriter who plays piano and we would like that to be part of what we do and the part of what we're going to put in the mix." And I said, "That's amazing." The first rehearsal was really rough because I was really trying to desperately catch up to what these other guys can do virtuosically and just in terms of being so deeply steeped in just music training. So it's been humbling, but it's also been super, super fun and a great challenge for me personally.
Leah Roseman:
So the first track you decided to revisit one of your songs from earlier, is that something one of the other band members suggested that they wanted to do?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah, there were a number of my songs that I submitted for, I guess, considerations, like which one of these feels like a Few of a Kind track. And it happened that Transcontinental 1:30 AM was one that all four of the other guys said. They're like, "Ooh, that's a good one. I would love to kind of dig into that one." And I really love what each of them brought to it. It feels like a really different song to me than when it was first recorded.
Leah Roseman:
So that was on your 2006 album, Dreaming Through the Noise. So can you speak to the lyrics a little bit and then we'll play a short clip?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. This one is more autobiographical than I often write. This one just came out of being a touring musician and I've been a touring musician for a few years at that point and realizing that it's really hard to maintain not just like a romantic relationship, but just friendships or any kind of deep relationship in general and having that feeling that you could talk to someone on the phone and realize that you're both drifting in ways that you can't quite put your finger on. So I wrote that song as a way of kind of expressing that moment when you really want to say, "Wait, can we reconnect? I understand that we're drifting and that we're not entirely here the way we used to be. " And trying to name it and say, "I want to be really more connected to you, " and then kind of making that invitation.
And I really liked putting that in a sort of jazz influenced, kind of more hushed setting the way that two people really trying to get real with each other might sound. (Music clip Transcontinental 1:30 AM, Few of a Kind album linked in show notes)
Leah Roseman:
It's so beautiful. And I mean, I do listen to a lot of jazz. I mean, you sound like a jazz singer on that track particularly, and you have the close mic intimate sound that you go for. Of course, you have a beautiful voice, but I understand you haven't really taken vocal coaching or the coachings you got didn't really work for you.
Vienna Teng:
I am still, I would say that I've been trained on the job vocally, I guess. I did sing in some choir and acapella groups, and of course, yeah, I sang in a lot of open mics and then doing my own shows, but a lot of it has been sort of intuitively finding how to use my voice and just sort of watching and absorbing what other people do vocally. So I still sometimes worry that I'm not doing it in a healthy way, but it's true that most of it is kind of learning by doing it.
Leah Roseman:
So in terms of the strain on your voice?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. I think that that's part of why I often use my voice in a more kind of hushed close mic kind of way. When I perform live, I try to let people know that like I'm not a very loud singer. I don't project, I don't have a lot of like power behind my voice compared to some other people. And especially when I'm sitting at a concert grand piano, it helps for the engineers to know that, that the signal level coming from my voice is going to be a lot lower than my piano instrument.
Leah Roseman:
I'm always interested to talk with singers about the concept of the voice as your instrument is separate from you. How does that feel for you?
Vienna Teng:
I do feel like it's an instrument that I play that I can't see and that I can't really touch with my fingers or anything like that. So obviously it's one of the most built-in and instinctive instruments. Pretty much everybody can sing even if they think they're tone deaf, right? But I feel like to really learn how to use my instrument and to use it in a more kind of hushed, jazzy way or in a more kind of barn raising kind of way or in a bluesy way, any of that, I really have to kind of learn what it can do, like my particular instrument. And so it's really fun to figure that out. And the times I have gotten vocal coachings, either in groups or otherwise, I love how vocal coaches talk in very, you could say woo-woo terms because that's the only way to access it, right?
They're like, feel like you're really kind of rooting yourself deep into the ground and like sing from there, like sing out of your toes, that kind of thing, because that's how you access the technique.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. It's interesting because singers, particularly classical singers, I think, they tend to have coaching through their career because they recognize that what they're hearing is not the same as what's coming out. But like as a violinist myself, it's not something string players tend to do. We don't keep, even maybe we should, but there's like a different mindset about that.
Vienna Teng:
I kind of wish there were more of a default assumption among us like singer songwriters that you would continue to get training and coaching throughout your career. I know that some singer songwriters are great about that and I'll admit that it hasn't often occurred to me that like, "Oh, I should keep having voice lessons or I could keep finding vocal coach." But actually, especially listening to Ben Russell in Few of a Kind and just like the different things that he can do with his voice have really made me think like, "I should find a vocal coach so I can expand and like do cool stuff like Ben can do.
Leah Roseman:
" Yeah, it was interesting to hear you guys singing together and I didn't realize at first that he was the violinist. So I was like, "Oh, that's really cool." So you knew that he also sang when you joined the group?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. I had heard Founders recordings in which he was one of the primary vocalists and a lot of the repertoire outside of what we released in this EP includes songs that Ben sings on. And I've just really loved his voice and not only his ability to duet with his violin at the same time, which I've heard is incredibly hard to do, but he does in such a musical and beautiful way. And it's amazing to hear kind of the refinement and the discipline of his violin playing with the rawness and kind of primal energy in his voice. It's such an amazing juxtaposition. So yeah, I've loved performing with Ben and Ben mentioned, he's like, "It's really fun to have another person who likes using her voice as a full instrument for us to kind of play with that. "
Leah Roseman:
Well, I was going to kind of go in order of the tracks, but actually, I mean the fourth track, Two Steps From the Blues is the one we're kind of talking about. So do you want to say a little bit more about that track and we can play a clip for people?
Vienna Teng:
Two Steps From the Blues is an arrangement by Ben Russell and he just really loved this Bobby Bland track and felt like it could be a Few of a Kind tune. And it was really fun when he brought the arrangement to us and he was really trying to emphasize how like it may seem sort of simple on its surface, but like there's a real pocket that you have to find in the ... He was really coaching us through how to find the particular energy that he wanted as kind of the bed for his performance and I loved, loved doing that on Two Steps. (Music clip Two Steps From the Blues, Few of a Kind)
Leah Roseman:
Where was the album recorded?
Vienna Teng:
It was recorded at Octavian. I might mess this up. Octavian Studios, I think it's in the Bronx or just kind of north of New York City. And it was a really fun studio and I'm going to forget the last name of the engineer producer who worked with us, but his name's Ryan. And Ryan did an incredible job not only of recording us technically, but of also producing us because all of the performances are live single take performances. And he was really great at not only hearing whether it was going to work in terms of how it was coming through the mics, but he would come over and say, "That was great. This particular section felt tentative," or things like that. So he was really coaching us in the way that a producer does, and he was really deeply listening and sometimes he would even say like, "This bar that you have right here, is that what you guys meant to do?
" And someone would say, "No, no, no, I just messed that one up." So Ryan's ears were super sharp and we felt like we were in such good hands recording up there. And I know that he records a lot of amazing ensembles in that style where you put everyone in a room together, you do whole takes, and he's listening super closely to whether what you want to put across is coming across.
Leah Roseman:
That's great to hear that you're able to do it in that way. I'm a big fan of that.
Vienna Teng:
It really feels like for a band like Few of a Kind, the only way to do it.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And what a great band name. Who came up with that one?
Vienna Teng:
Thank you. I don't remember who came up with it. It wasn't me. I remember Brandon and Ben came to a lunch of all five of us at one point and said, "All right, I think we have a good idea for a new name." Because we'd had a Google Doc of all these names and as you do, and none of us were super excited about any of them. And they said, "All right. Few of a Kind." And immediately all of us were like, "Ooh, yeah, yeah." I immediately see what that means and kind of how just the feel of it felt right.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Maybe we'll talk about some other stuff and go back to this album. So you did go back to graduate school to study environmental sustainability, which you've been working in. So I was hoping to talk about some of solutions based, what is possible, and I believe you focus on clean energy and waste streams as well.
Vienna Teng:
Professionally, after I went to grad school, those were the two main things that I worked on. Yeah. Expanding clean energy and making clean energy more affordable and then also working mostly in the global south, like countries in the global south on diverting more waste from landfills and open illegal dumping and into recycling and composting systems. A lot of them very, very locally run and trying to create better markets for things that get recycled and composted. So yeah, that was a really fun several years to get to feel like I was no longer just sort of hoping somebody would do more and to be one of the people wrestling with the day-to-day work of making it happen.
Leah Roseman:
So your decision to go back to school at that point, you were touring a lot at that ... So what was that like that Crossroads?
Vienna Teng:
It felt like it was the culmination of years of thinking about it and working toward it actually. I remember being on a tour bus at some point, maybe it was like 2004 or five, and even then I was studying for I think the MCAT or the GRE to apply to grad school because I had in my head that I am more than one thing across this lifetime in terms of how I might find my livelihood. And so I knew I was a musician. I am a musician, always will be. And then I also felt like, and I want to be doing something else at some point. And when I found these environmental sustainability programs, especially the one at the University of Michigan, I felt like I really want to work toward that and understand if I can contribute there too. So when I walked away from being a full-time musician in 2010, I think a lot of people were really surprised about that.
But for me, it felt like it wasn't like in 2009, I'm like, "I don't want to do this anymore." And then made a big switch. It was more like for years I felt like at some point I'm going to do this.
Leah Roseman:
Well, can we talk a little bit about recycling and waste dreams?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. The short answer is with recycling is that a lot of it comes down to, it really matters that you separate things that are actually recyclable because those things genuinely have value, especially certain things like aluminum and cardboard and white paper. Those are the things that, if we're being totally honest, are the things that have value in the market for recycled materials. A lot of the other stuff, like plastics, like there are uses for them and I think it really kind of comes and goes how profitable it is to do things with it. So I've come to have kind of a nuanced view about it. I feel like recycling's really important and certain things are much more important to recycle than others and what we really need is more kind of bigger changes around what are the actual economics of using recycled materials versus virgin and mined materials.
So that's kind of what I and the organization I was with were trying to work on. It's like, how do we actually shift so that it actually is profitable for companies to source recycled materials rather than where they've been getting them before? And for the average person, I would say do the best you can and save your energy for some other solutions and ways of engaging and making the world better.
Yeah, that's what I would say.
Leah Roseman:
Well, you'd mentioned the Global South and that a lot of these initiatives were local, but I understand a lot of the richer countries are sending our waste to other countries.
Vienna Teng:
Right. And a lot of the waste that we try to recycle goes to ... It was going to China for a long time and then China said, "We don't want to be the world's recycling dump anymore." And then it kind of flowed to some other Southeast Asian countries who were then getting overwhelmed with, I guess you could say global north recycling trash. So it really does kind of bring home that there is no away. That's one of the kind of adages in recycling and waste management is that ultimately all this stuff goes somewhere and it may disappear from your view, but it goes somewhere else. And I often feel like that makes me think more about like being mindful of what I consume in the first place. And if I'm going to buy something that has a lot of plastic packaging, maybe so be it, but I would love to find a place where I can just buy it without all of that packaging.
And more importantly, like, do I actually need this thing in the first place? And can I get it from my neighbor or can I get it from the goodwill across the city or something like that? And it's really opened my eyes to how fun secondhand markets are to shop at. And so that's more what I try to emphasize when I talk to people about solutions to waste and climate and other things like that. It's like, go find the fun stuff secondhand and thrifting is really, really fun and
Being more intentional about how much stuff accumulates in your house is actually really satisfying.
Leah Roseman:
One of my kids lives in Europe and she was saying like a lot of people there would not consider buying a new appliance because you can always get like a washing machine or something. And in Canada, I don't think that's the case where I feel like if you need a new fridge, most people, if you can afford it, you'll get a new fridge, you're not going to ... You know what I mean? That kind of attitude.
Vienna Teng:
Right. And I think that different places have different cultures around that. And I know that one thing that was actually really striking for me going to some places in East Asia is that the kind of emphasis on new and not only that, like new things, but also beautifully packaged things with a lot of packaging. So we're not necessarily like the furthest along on the other side of the spectrum. So the way I think of it is, are there ways in which I, in my very small way, can influence the culture around me? And so if we are one family that figures out how to thrift or hand make things as gifts rather than buying something from the local department store, or if we can always look first to see if we can buy something used and let people know that that's what we do, then that's the sort of ripple effect that each of us can have.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, for sure. Well, let's go back to Few of a Kind, so second track, Alone.
Vienna Teng:
Yep. Alone is Brandon Ridenour's setting of the Maya Angelou poem "Alone". So he took the text by Maya Angelou and like created this whole song around it, which I just love every time we play it. (Music clip track 2 "Alone" Few of a Kind)
Leah Roseman:
And when you guys have performed these, I assume they're quite different than the recorded versions and that you're adding in material yet to be recorded?
Vienna Teng:
Yes. We have some songs that I don't know that we'll get around to recording. There are some that actually come from the previous incarnation of Few of a Kind, Founders. There's some arrangements that we've adapted to this instrumentation, but since they were recorded by Founders, we won't be recording Them again, but you get to hear the Few of a Kind version in a live show. And each of us is still composing, writing new material to bring to the band.
Leah Roseman:
So Brandon and Ben had been in Founders before, so did you know them separately or just of the group?
Vienna Teng:
I knew Brandon as a performer and composer. So the way that he and I met actually was that he wrote to ask if he could arrange one of my songs, Pontchartrain for a project that he was doing in which he would be basically composing a kind of continuous composition over the course of, I think it was like half an hour or even 45 minutes that would go from one song seamlessly to the next. And he said, "Your song Pontchartrain would fit beautifully between a Radiohead song and a Pink Floyd song that I'm arranging." And I thought, wow, what an incredible place to be put in a set list and to be composed into the setlist that way. And I said, "Absolutely, this sounds incredible." And so that's how we first connected. And then I got to see him perform as part of Canadian Brass and then we just became friends after that.
And so a year later he said, "Oh, we should work together in some way." And we co-taught a lab together at the New School, at the Mannes School of Music where he teaches. And then after that he said, "You know this band I've been in, Founders, we're kind of remixing it a little bit. Would you like to be part of it?
Leah Roseman:
Okay. And what was that lab at the New School that you were teaching with him?
Vienna Teng:
We were teaching how to begin to craft a life in music that also had social impact woven throughout it. And he thought that I would be a fun co-instructor for that because of the weird twists and turns that my career has taken. And obviously he would bring the perspective as someone who came more through the deeply committed to music as a vocation sort of route. And it was really fun working with these students who were just incredibly gifted and advanced as musicians and also very thoughtful about like, how do I want to use that as a vehicle for contributing something to the world beyond beautiful music and collaborations. And so there were people who were thinking about how to shift the conversation for social change in their home countries. There were other people who thought about what kind of collaborations would be meaningful to like kind of create dialogue across divides.
So it was a really amazing couple of days and pretty intense for me too.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Did you consider going into music for a conservatory or university when you were younger?
Vienna Teng:
I briefly considered going into music school, but I realized pretty early on that I don't have the work ethic for that particular kind of pursuit of music. I played classical piano when I was growing up and I played a solo recital when I was a sophomore in high school and entered some competitions in high school. And my piano teacher at one point told me and said, "You might have kind of the raw ingredients to really pursue this. You would really need to be practicing a lot more and to get a lot more intense about it. " And I said, "What do you mean?" And he's like, "Well, you probably need to be practicing like at least like three, four, maybe five hours a day." And I was like, "I can barely make it to two hours before I really want to do something else." So I just felt like I don't know that I'm going to enjoy honing my craft and music in that particular way, that intensively.
And at the time I was really writing a lot of music that was bad, but I was really excited about continuing to work on being a songwriter. So I thought like, "Well, if I'm going to pursue music, it'll probably be this way."
Leah Roseman:
I'm sure your early songs weren't bad, but what about-
Vienna Teng:
Oh, you'd be surprised. They had promise, but they had plenty of cringiness to them.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Well, what do you think makes a great song then?
Hi, just a really quick break from the episode. I wanted to let you know about some other episodes I’ve linked directly to this one in the show notes, with Gabriel Kahane, Jean Rohe, Ida Gillner, Fern Lindzon and Diane Nalini In the show notes you’ll also find a link to sign up for my newsletter, where you’ll get exclusive information about upcoming guests, a link for my Ko-fi page to support this project directly, where you can buy me one coffee, or every month, and my podcast merchandise store with a design commissioned from artist Steffi Kelly. You can also review this podcast, share it with your friends, and follow on your podcast app, YouTube, and social media. All this helps spread the word! Thanks. Now back to my conversation with Vienna.
Vienna Teng:
I think a great song is one that ultimately that people just fall in love with and maybe they don't even know why. I think that even something that you might say, "Oh, the lyrics are so incipient." If it's grabbing people's attention and making them fall in love, then there's something that it's doing right. And I've learned to really take different songs on their own terms. There are some songs that are lyrically exquisite and they're saying something really profound in the lyrics and that maybe the setting of those lyrics is very simple, but that's serving its purpose. And there are other ones where the lyrics are basically nonsensical or pretty dumb, but the production is incredible and there's something about it that really gets people on their feet.
I would guess for me personally, the way that I like to write songs are songs that feel like they are kind of a warm invitation to more conversation. I like writing a song that maybe makes people think like, "Oh, yeah. I don't think I'd really looked at it that way or ooh. I never really kind of had that particular story or topic kind of hit me in that way." And so I try not to be soapboxy when I have a point that I'm trying to explore, but more trying to tell a story and say like, "Well, what if it feels like this? What if it looks like this? " And I think that that applies to more kind of emotional relationship sort of songs and for politically topical songs and everything in between for me.
Leah Roseman:
And I was just thinking about falling in love with songs that we don't understand the lyrics because it's in a different language than we understand.
Vienna Teng:
Absolutely. There's a song that I sing when I'm touring solo and performing solo called the Green Island Serenade. It's a translation of a Chinese, a song, a Mandarin Chinese called “Lüdao Xiaoyequ,” . And I often sing it and preface it by saying like, most of you won't understand what the lyrics mean, but I think you will anyway, because there's something coded in the melody and the way that the song is that it's ultimately a song about longing and understanding that the longing is unrequited. And I think that kind of thing really comes across in music when people don't speak the language that the lyrics are in.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I did want to ask you about your identity as an Asian American. I know you're good friends with Alex Wong and he's collaborated with you musically as well and he addresses this stuff pretty publicly. And I also read that one time you got hired for some Korean thing because they made some assumption.
Vienna Teng:
I feel like I have learned a lot from watching Alex sort this stuff out in a very public and very deeply creative way. I honestly feel like he and I kind of embody being Asian American differently. I think that for me, it's not high on the list of the identities that I am very aware of and carry around. I know that it's part of me and it's not something that I've kind of like excavated all that much. I feel like I'm primarily somebody who loves trying to figure out how to have rich conversations and I feel in that sense much more invested in my American identity of like, what is going on with my country and like how can I be helpful?
And also in, how do we kind of look farther in terms of what's happening with climate and what is happening with like our relationship with our cousin species out there. So that's kind of more where I sit and to the extent that I'm Asian American, like I often feel like it's not something that I hide or downplay, but it's also not something that I delve deeply into. So it just feels like the way I grew up absolutely informs how I write and like how I move in the world. And there's a lot that I could go and dig further into the way that I, the same way I guess that I could have gone into conservatory and practiced five plus hours a day and it's just not where I'm particularly drawn. And at the same time, like Alex and I have been close friends for years and to have these conversations and to hear kind of what he's bringing up in himself and confronting in himself and wrestling with, and then kind of sharing with everybody and watching how transformative the conversations he is having with other people is really powerful and I appreciate that too.
Leah Roseman:
Do you think it might be different for men in terms of their like negative stereotypes?
Vienna Teng:
That's a great question. I know that Alex has talked a lot about how he always felt like he was kind of put in the role of like the sidekick or like the exotic person that you would never date or that kind of thing. And I guess kind of broadly speaking, Asian women get put in a different stereotype where we're sort of exoticized in the way that like is attractive and put in a box in that specific way. I can only speak to my own personal experience and I don't know why, but I've just sort of felt like I walk through the world as a very free person. I don't feel threatened and I don't feel put in a box pretty much like 99.7% of the time. And so that's kind of how I inhabit the world. I sometimes joke that I'm actually like a white dude except I look like an Asian woman.
So that's kind of my experience and kind of there, I think there are downsides to it, but there are also, you know, there's a lot of power in just sort of assuming that of course you can take up space, of course you can be whoever you are.
And so that's something that, yeah, Alex and I have talked about and he said, "I always felt like I was waiting for permission and it's been a long journey to realize that like I have permission to do all these things." And we've talked about like, you know, why, we don't know why, but like I've just always assumed I had permission for all the things. Yeah. And I feel like there's a lot of unspoken assumptions. This seems tangential, but I was recently reading a novel in which the author very explicitly put in there that one of like the main characters was like the emperor of this realm that it's set in, has really dark skin. And I remember noticing that like despite the fact that I'd been told that in the text, like I kept conjuring this idea of like, "Oh, the emperor, this white dude." And then I would have to like explicitly correct it and be like, "Nope." And I was like, "Wow, there's some deep programming in there that like my brain keeps wanting to supply a default that is not supported at all by like what I'm reading and like I wonder why that's happening."
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. We talked a bit about your climate work professionally, but in conjunction with your concerts, you've often done workshops, like you've been while on tour.
Vienna Teng:
That is something that, yeah, I have been doing here and there and was doing more intensively for a while that I would try to hold climate action workshops like in music venues. So often it was before the show or it was like the morning or kind of lunchtime after the show. And it was really fun because I felt like people come to a music venue and they kind of already feel a certain way. They're like, "I'm here to have a good time. I'm here to feel this communal thing and to connect with an artist that means a lot to me. " And so it was really fun to kind of begin with that mood and those kind of cues and then to step into like, "Let's talk about what each of us can do for climate." And at first I felt like I really want to focus on getting people to do really tangible, like real action things, like that's really what I want to focus on.
But then I realized one of the bigger things that was happening was to just give people two hours in which they could feel hopeful, which I hadn't fully realized was something that people carry around like this like weight of wondering that like this thing is so overwhelming and I don't even know what we're going to do about it. And for me to not focus at all on how bad things are climate change wise or try to hammer to people, it's like, "This is an emergency." I didn't do any of that. I said, "A lot of what people miss is actually the good news and the exciting news and the fact that we just need more people to join and do little bits that make sense in their lives and like incredible things can happen." And so from there, we try to talk about like, "Well, are you in a position to look into solar for your house?
Are you in a position to buy into community solar and microgrid solar projects or like do you think you could try out an induction stove? Are there things that you could do in terms of if your furnace needs replacing, like kind of lining things up for that, or even things that get more engaged in policy and like broader things, like could you run for local office? Could you support a neighbor who is running for a local office and kind of help inform the sustainability initiatives they might put on? " And just exploring a lot of different things like that and giving people the sense that like, "Oh, there's actually a big menu of things to choose from and I could figure out like what works for me. " And having that light bulb go off and being like, "I don't need to do all the things.
I don't need to be an activist chaining myself to anything. I can just like talk to people about induction or I could start buying things from thrift stores and that kind of stuff." And helping people connect the dots to things that seem small and modest to this like bigger effort that is happening on behalf of millions of people all over the world. I think that's the thing that I really had a lot of fun doing with those workshops.
Leah Roseman:
That's beautiful. And I'm curious as a performer, that must have changed your relationship with the audience too.
Vienna Teng:
In the best possible way, yeah, because one of the things that I've always regretted about the nature of playing a show is that people remain mostly anonymous and I am deeply curious about the people who come to see performances. Occasionally in a merch table autograph line, someone will just mention something about themselves and I'm like, "That's incredible. That's a whole world where I would love to know more about. " And so in these workshops, like we would get to talk more about like, "Well, what's going on in your life and like what are some of your priorities and how might climate action kind of sync up with all of that? " And so I got to hear about people who are published science fiction writers or who work in ecology research or who work in an administrative role in a company that actually takes sustainability seriously.
So they've been part of corporate initiatives to do cool stuff and retirees who have started organizing their neighborhood to do things. And it's just really incredible to hear who I'm making music for and it makes performing and writing much more meaningful now.
Leah Roseman:
And at your merch table, I believe you have tea and songbooks. It's not just t-shirts and stickers.
Vienna Teng:
There are some merch items that I always try to put out there that are more unusual. So for a while, I had a release called We've Got You that was actually two songs that can be played simultaneously. So I thought, well-
Leah Roseman:
I'm hoping we'll get to that too.
Vienna Teng:
Right. So then I thought, well, I can make a caffeinated tea and an herbal tea and you could either consume them separately or blend them together and they would still work. So yeah, I enjoy merch projects like that too.
Leah Roseman:
Well, let's just jump over to that album because it's so beautiful and so interesting.
Vienna Teng:
Oh, thank you.
Leah Roseman:
And I believe the song Comfort, I mean, you wrote that after you ... Like you gave birth at the beginning of the pandemic, right? Right when it broke out. I wanted to ask you about that.
Vienna Teng:
That was, again, I feel like I live an incredibly privileged life and in the scheme of things, that was the best possible timing for me. And I just felt a lot for everybody else because yeah, our daughter was born in like late February 2020, so like before everything shut down, so the hospital and everything was like operating as normal. And then I entered maternity leave and was bonding with this infant kid that we had welcomed into our family and was not going to be leaving the house all that much anyway. And that was when the world shut down. And so in a way for us, it was a beautiful time, obviously like a very confusing and hard time kind of writ large. And also I felt like it's so different from having a kid in elementary school who's suddenly trying to do everything on Zoom or families that have to go out and work, that sort of thing.
So I felt very lucky, but it was a time of a lot of contemplation about a lot of new things that were happening and a lot of things to wrestle with that are messy and difficult.
Leah Roseman:
So actually, could we play a clip from Comfort?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah, absolutely. (Music: clip from Comfort, We've Got You EP linked in show notes)
Leah Roseman:
How about the companion track, Spark?
Vienna Teng:
I actually wrote them Comfort and Spark kind of around the same time, because I knew that I had to sort of architect them fitting together so that from the beginning I had to make room for them to have a conversation with one another. And I actually wrote most of Spark first and then kind of built Comfort around it, because I realized that Spark was going to have probably more of a groove to it, and so that was kind of what anchored the songwriting for a little while. But then I kind of put that on pause and felt like, well, I can't have Comfort sound like it was just sort of shoehorned in within the sort of crevices of this other song that was finished already. And the chorus of Comfort was really the next anchor, this feeling of "we'll bring rain in the summer heat", et cetera, et cetera. And so I felt like, okay, now I know what the soul of this particular song is and I know how to build around it. (Music clip of track 3 We've Got You, Two Truths)
Leah Roseman:
And the lyrics to Spark, do you want to speak to that a little bit?
Vienna Teng:
Spark is really using the phrase, "We've got you" as like," thank goodness we've got you to sort of show us out of this place that we're stuck." And I was just thinking about all these different people who have the courage to say something clearly or to do something in a really beautiful and courageous way that makes people like me realize like, "Oh right, we could be that. I could be that. " And so I was thinking about a lot of different people, like certain protestors, but also certain writers and political thinkers, people who like, yeah, basically have the ability to say like, "Okay, I have an idea that's really different from everything else that we're doing right now, and what if we did this? " And that provides this moment of clarity for so many of us. So that's kind of what Spark is about.
And then Comfort really came out of being a biological mom for the first time. We also have like older, for me, bonus kids, but this was my first time really kind of nurturing someone from birth onward or even from before birth onward. And it made me realize like, "I'm not good at this. I don't know how to do this. " There's some of it that came a little more instinctively than others, but I've never had much maternal instinct. And so to really focus on another human being and to pay attention to like, "You may not be telling me explicitly what you need and I have to be able to read it and then provide it and show up in the ways that you need me to show up." I began to see how that is everywhere and that the people who are able to do that for other people in so many different contexts are kind of what hold the world together and that's what I wanted to write about that caregivers are doing such sacred work in all these different contexts.
Leah Roseman:
You mentioned reading and books and I really found it so inspiring "The River Sitter" after Dave Eggers. I listened to that podcast episode, which I can link in the show notes. It's so beautiful. So Dave Eggers reads from the "Museum of Rain" and then you wrote the song, which people can find on Bandcamp and it's such a beautiful song. But I did listen to it before I heard the episode. So that was very interesting to hear you talk about how you created it. And I know that you work really hard at writing songs. I mean, you're so good for the listeners, it seems like, oh, it just pours out of you so naturally, but you really, it's a real craft, right?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. And one that I feel like I'm relearning every single time, I feel like ... I wish it got easier, but it seems to just get harder. And as people will hear if they listen to the episode of Songwriter that Dave Eggers and I are in, it really only came together out of panic because I had put Ben Arthur, the host of the podcast for so long and he said, "I really cannot do this episode unless it's this season, like we run out of time." And that was when, for whatever reason, like my overthinking had to get put aside and then the song that was always meant to be the song finally came out. And I think that the River Sitter, I really love how it turned out and how it's resonated with people who don't know the backstory that it was written in response to this book, "The Museum of Rain". And at the same time, I feel like the most gratifying thing for me is that I felt like, "Oh, I finally figured out how to write this song in a way that references all of what I love in this book." And so to write a song kind of like after a book and after an author's work, it was a really fun challenge and one that really stumped me for like over a year, but to finally get it right and feel like I did some justice to that book feels really good.
Leah Roseman:
It was interesting to hear Dave Eggers talk about how he always has music playing when he's writing and that he said he wasn't that interested in knowing about the musicians or how that music was created. I found that, especially as someone that, that's what I do with this podcast, a lot of it, I'm like, "Really? Why don't you want to know about the musicians?" But that was interesting perspective.
Vienna Teng:
I do love that there are some creative people like Dave Eggers who want a layer of mystery, right, preserved. I was just thinking about this because I finally watched "A Complete Unknown", the biopic about Bob Dylan the other night, and then I'm like you, I wanted to Google all the sort of behind the scenes, the interviews with the actors and the director to sort of understand more about it and came across an interview with Ed Norton who plays Pete Seeger and he said, "Everybody keeps wanting to ask about like, how did we do the fake teeth? How did we do that? " He's like, "I wish people would just appreciate the thing for what it is and like be kind of bought into the world that we created through that without kind of needing to see behind the curtain." And that's not where my instincts go at all, but I really respect that as kind of a way of approaching things.
And it seems like Dave Eggers does the same thing. He's like, "I listen to music and it means something really, really important to me and I don't need or even want to know much about who made it and what it was about for them." And to this day we haven't met because maybe he wants to preserve a little bit of that.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I was going to ask that, but I'm wondering also, I mean, he's writing with such detail and specificity, maybe that part of his brain, he needs, in order to have the music be in the background, which for most musicians is a hard thing for that to be the case. So maybe that's part of it for him.
Vienna Teng:
Maybe so, yeah. And that reminds me of another musician I had a chat with at one point, and I'm so sorry that I can't bring his name to mind right now, but he's the bassist composer and he mentioned that he was trying to get more gigs where he's background music, which was such a surprising thing to hear because so many of us kind of want to be paid attention to in a reverent way. And he said, "Yeah, I've been trying to figure out like, how do I play more laundromats? How do I play in more just like living room parties where like I'm just being ignored, but I'm like creating a place for like other stuff to happen. It feels like a much more, a form of service than it is like ego." And again, like it's like, "Oh yeah, that's not where I initially go.
" I don't necessarily enjoy singing my songs, it's background music, but I actually have from that conversation come to appreciate that like, yes, some people put my music on in the background and they're not paying attention to it and it still serves the purpose that they put my music on for, and I think that's beautiful.
Leah Roseman:
They're feeling the emotion at a underlying level probably. This bass player was probably a jazz musician, I'm guessing?
Vienna Teng:
I think he goes by Bam Bam. So if you can track them down that way.
Leah Roseman:
I was just curious because some of my jazz friends have said sometimes they just want that kind of not a listening room so they can just be freer to do whatever and not feel self-conscious.
Vienna Teng:
Right. Yeah. I do know that there are some musicians who like performing but not feeling like they're the center of focus or attention because yeah, for them it makes them kind of relax and to be able to experiment and take risks and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of reasons why sometimes you don't want everyone paying attention to you when you're making music.
Leah Roseman:
Well, let's go back to Few of a Kind. So speaking of free, so the third track, Five's Alive. It's quite improvised. So Andrew, how do you say his name? Gutausskis. Yeah. Gutauskis. So Sax and Clarinet and he sort of put the seeds together for this track?
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. He actually composed the entire thing and of course left certain space for us to get improvisatory throughout it. And especially near the end, there were some things that we kind of collaboratively helped him shape, but he's really the architect of the whole thing. And I love that he broke my brain trying to internalize the kind of different ways that he plays with 5-4 and 5-8 time, just because I have written in 5-4 and 5-8 before this odd time signature, but always in a particularly set way. And part of what he's doing with Five's Alive is that he's actually mathematically exploring different ways of playing in five. And it was really hard for me to get the hang of it. And it was really Yousif Sheronick, the percussionist who came to my rescue. He's like, "Look, I'll just give you this study pulse and then I think that it'll make more sense to you when you have that pulse underneath you.
" And I was like, "You're right. Yousif, please be my life preserver on this one." And I love the different just crazy journeys that that song goes on. (Music clip of Five's Alive, Few of a Kind)
Leah Roseman:
It's interesting because I think it has to do with going with the intuitive rather than the analytical part of your brain in terms of responding to a rhythm like that. But you must have a real mathematical brain because you did computer programming.
Vienna Teng:
I feel like I do have a head for logical and kind of organizing things sort of craft and that definitely comes in handy in like studio production and it comes in handy when you're trying to create your packing lists and itinerary and checklist for tour and things like that. But you're right that when it comes to playing a groove in five eight or something like that, it really becomes much more ... It's an exercise in kind of embodying mathematics more than kind of trying to think about it. And I think that's really what Yousif was patiently coaching me through. He's like, "You can't be counting in your head. You have to like feel it. And once you feel it, then your other hand can do other things and you can like be tuning into what the other musicians are doing." And so I'm really grateful to Yousif for being my instructor in playing challenging odd meters.
Leah Roseman:
So did you know Yousif from before playing with Few of a Kind?
Vienna Teng:
I met Yousif when a Few of a Kind got put together and our first rehearsal that I was part of was actually in his studio, in his home studio. So we got to hang out amidst all his shelves of amazing percussion instruments and his collection of frame drums, which is his specialty. And it was really, really fun.
Leah Roseman:
Have you tried playing frame drum for fun?
Vienna Teng:
Just very, in a very rudimentary way. I've gotten kind of the first beginner lesson from Yousif. And yeah, I really love how he kind of breaks it down. He's like, "If you can just kind of like tap your fingers like this, you know how to play frame drums. That's just the basics of it. " And then he started to walk through like how you kind of strike the drum and to get different timbres and how you create different sort of traditional rhythms throughout and patterns. So much fun.
Leah Roseman:
And Andrew, like I love the sonority, like he's playing bass clarinet or maybe bari sax. I'm trying to remember. It's like lower-
Vienna Teng:
He plays bari sax and bass clarinet.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. Yeah. So what's he like to work with?
Vienna Teng:
Oh, he's great. So the different personalities in the band are, Brandon is always like poker faced and like with this incredibly dry wit and kind of one of the masterminds of it all. And Andrew is kind of our happy go lucky guy, which he jokes is really funny because he sort of has resting mean face. So everybody kind of assumes that he's a tough guy, but like he's the nicest guy in the world and is always like just so enthusiastic about everything and like the first to tell someone else that he like really loved what you did in that one bit. And yeah, his enthusiasm is contagious and he has this beautiful like humility. He's this brilliant musician and is always like talking about like how much more he has to learn and like what he's excited to learn about. And then Yousif is also just like this very sweet and gentle presence and just like very loving and thoughtful toward everybody and what he says and what he's providing to everybody all the time.
I guess he's sort of our like band dad or something like that, has a very sort of paternal, maternal sort of vibe and Ben has this sort of kind of crazy genius, like wild man energy to him that I really love where it's a sort of like barely contained frenzy and this sort of like frenetic energy that then gets channeled in this like super disciplined way. I'm not sure what they would say I bring to it, but those are like the other four personalities. And one thing that we've all remarked on is how much fun we all have together and how nice it is to be in a band together. We all just have a lot of patience and generosity and kindness toward each other, which I don't know, maybe isn't true of all bands. We all approach it with very low ego and with an eye on just kind of taking care of each other and like helping each other be the best we can be.
Leah Roseman:
Nice. You'd mentioned packing lists and I did want to ask you about touring, which can be such a stress psychologically and physically. Would you be willing to share, like do you have go- to items that you really need to pack when you go on tour?
Vienna Teng:
I actually find touring really fun and to me, like the main stress is just kind of being away, especially from our young kid at home and understanding that that kind of creates work for people in my absence that they have to step up and do on my behalf. So that's mostly what stresses me out, but tour I find like a grand adventure every time. I will say that as I get older, I've had to really take care of my voice and my health in ways that I could be more blase about before. So now I carry a, I guess you could say a nebulizer, just to kind of humidify my throat. So that's the main thing that I try to make sure that I have with me at all times, along with a water bottle because as a vocalist, it seems like anytime there's a virus or any kind of stressor, the first thing to go is my voice.
So I really try to make sure that I'm being a good steward of that part of what I do, that instrument.
Leah Roseman:
Our orchestra, we used to play opera a couple times a year. And I remember as a violinist getting annoyed because they would invariably announce that some singer wasn't feeling their best, but they would still sing. So they would announce to the audience.
Vienna Teng:
Right. I have played a number of shows where like I'd just gotten my voice back and I was actually still on like ... Yeah, I was still on corticosteroids to kind of like keep the inflammation down and I would have these like kind of coughing spasms. And so it is a weird thing to play a show while coughing spasms are happening and trying to just kind of say, "Okay, now I'm singing this louder than I used to. I'm just going to have to make that some sort of like make some artistic sense." So it can be really challenging and when it happens, like there's only so much that you can do only except to rest it and to do what you can. So I can understand why violinists would get annoyed at vocalists who aren't feeling their best.
Leah Roseman:
No, I mean, I get it. And now I'm older and I think I understand more, but you know, often, yeah, as a musician, you're not always feeling your best for many reasons and you have to play. Well, we talked a little bit about your early career and I believe one of your highlights was touring with Joan Baez.
Vienna Teng:
Yes. I did get to open for Joan Baez for just three shows actually, but that was an incredible opportunity, not only of course to meet Joan in person, she was really generous with her time backstage and she would like come say hi and introduce herself to me and like the musicians I was playing with, but also to see someone in such powerful form like so far into her career that was really inspiring. And it was one of the first times I, it was opening for another artist and playing to a larger room and just to feel the responsibility of like, "Okay, I know who you came to see and I better deliver something that's kind of worthy of your time and what you came for. " It was really great to like feel like that brought my A game as a performer.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. I mean, she's someone I definitely listened to growing up and I'm quite a lot older than you, so just, she's such an icon.
Vienna Teng:
Yeah. And I grew up on her music as well and hearing her renditions of a lot of songs from that era. And so I don't know that she was one of my main influences as a songwriter or as a musician, but I feel like a lot of what I absorbed from her and Peter Paul and Mary and Joni Mitchell and all those folks who were singing from that era, I feel like that really informed just how I sang when I, especially as I was first starting out.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. And since you took a major hiatus from touring and performing, how, in the ways that the music industry has changed, certainly with social media and promotions different, now we have podcasts. Do you have any reflections about that?
Vienna Teng:
Only that I feel very much like an old dog trying to learn new tricks coming back kind of 10 years since really promoting like a full length album because you're right, the landscape has changed completely and I feel really, again, very lucky because I think in the absence of me releasing new music, for whatever reason, people have continued to pass my music along to other folks and it's ended up in playlists where people have discovered me. And so I feel like my challenge now is that like beyond the people who have done the work for me, kind of how do I do my share of the work in terms of getting my music out there to people who might appreciate it. But it's been incredible when I go on tour and then I'll meet people who have said, "Oh, I discovered you in like 2019" when I had nothing going on.
And they said, "I discovered you in 2019 and like bought all these albums or like fell in love with all these songs and I was bummed that I might not ever get to see you play." So it means a lot that people still discover music organically and have it passed along to them by family members and friends and coworkers and people like that.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah. You haven't put your earlier albums on Bandcamp, I noticed.
Vienna Teng:
I haven't put my earlier albums on in part because I don't have the rights to them. So those, my first and second albums, Waking Hour, and Warm Strangers were released under Virt Records and then licensed to Rounder Records who also own the masters of my third and fourth albums, Dream Through the Noise and Inland Territory. So all of those albums kind of are kind of like by the graces of Rounder Records that they're kind of out there on the streaming services. So maybe someday I'll get the masters and do something with them, but in the meantime, like it's what I have released on my own and on my own label that is on Bandcamp. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Have you considered redoing some of those maybe with Few of a Kind and rereleasing them that way?
Vienna Teng:
Ooh, that is a fun project. I want to be mindful of Few of a Kind being its own band and its own thing. So I feel like Few of a Kind is really a project where each of us kind of equally bring contributions to it and arrangements and songs. So I don't want Few of a Kind to turn into like revisiting my discography sort of project, but that being said, I would love to hear what the guys would do with some of these songs, so we'll see what happens.
Leah Roseman:
I did want to ask you also about, we've got you, I believe your husband Jacob Corvidae did the album cover, did the album art.
Vienna Teng:
Yes. He is also just creative in all sorts of different directions. His day job is working miracles in clean energy, in the clean energy space, but he's also a writer and a visual artist. And so one of the things I often turn to him for is like, if I've got maybe like an overly clever concept, I would love to see visually like, how would that work? And so he made a cover for We've Got You that's an ambigram, meaning that if you flip it upside down or reverse it, it still says the same thing. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Well, thanks so much for this today. It was just wonderful meeting you.
Vienna Teng:
Oh, it was wonderful getting to talk to you, Leah. Thank you for the extended conversation. I love that we can do this on podcasts and thank you for the beautiful questions.
Leah Roseman:
But was there anything I didn't ask you about that maybe you wanted to talk about?
Vienna Teng:
Only in the very sort of like promotional sense that Few of a Kind is performing live and we're really looking forward to doing that again and we're playing our EP release show on March 24th. So I'm really looking forward to playing with them because we all have these different schedules and other projects that we have. So when we can come together and perform live for an audience, that's really precious to us and we're going to have a great time.
Leah Roseman:
Well, this podcast will definitely be out by then. So where will that show be?
Vienna Teng:
It'll be at the loft at City Winery in New York City.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. Well, lots of listeners in New York, so they should head out there. So thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep in mind, I've also linked directly several episodes you'll find interesting in the show notes of this one. Please do share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at LeahRoseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.
