the longevity game: dispatches from a life amid long traditions
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Hello Reader... It's still summer here in DC, apparently: thunderstorms, temperatures high enough to sweat in shorts. On a bike ride to Rock Creek Park the other afternoon, Arcadia asked what climate change was. That's a fun thing to try to explain to a first grader while yelling sideways in traffic. I've been thinking a lot about longevity lately - not the fancy medical treatments, but the things we build and collectively sustain. I think about how improbable it is that any creative endeavor endures. I think about what it takes to pull it off: the legions of helpers, the extraordinary commitment and savvy of a few crucial folks, the courage to evolve with changing times, the fierce protection of what matters most. And yes, luck. It may be as true of a democratic republic as it is of a concert series, or an indie musician's career. 50th Ann Arbor Folk Festival, January 29-30, 2027I still remember my first Ann Arbor Folk Festival in 2005, with Marika Hughes on cello and Alan Lin on violin. I'd played The Ark a few times before that, to small audiences clustered in the middle seats, surely losing money for the venue. The Ark folks were unfazed. "We'll get you on the Folk Festival, and you'll sell this place out from then on," they assured me. Still I was not expecting the roar of 3,000 people when we walked on the Hill Auditorium stage that evening. Nor the festival staffer who ran up backstage a few minutes after we finished playing: "We've run out of your CDs." I already gave the merch team spare boxes, I explained. "No, we definitely sold out of all that. Did you bring any more?" That's the power of The Ark, and the music ecosystem they've nurtured. Since 1965, when four local churches joined to create a kind of creative gathering space for students, they've brought music into the lives of countless people and helped launch many, many careers. They still host folk titans and first-time performers alike, 300+ days a year. What an incredible tradition to be part of. Prior to that, I'll be returning to an equally long-lived music institution: The Freight in Berkeley CA! We're reviving my annual custom of Bay Area holiday shows at The Freight, and I'll be playing all-request sets for two nights. I've got a few other shows coming up too, in beautiful venues that I hope will thrive just as long. More U.S. dates to come in 2027, too.
All tour details are at viennateng.com/tour, as always. Live@Home song indexA far more modest 50th: tomorrow evening, Saturday October 17 at 9:00pm Eastern, I'll be playing my 50th Live@Home concert for Patreon! To mark the occasion, we've posted a living archive of all Live@Home setlists to date, indexed by song and category. Each link takes you right to where that song starts in the YouTube livestream video. Some fun stats:
Until November 1, the Live@Home archive & song index will be open to everyone, not just paid patrons. Feel free to browse around, or send a friend to check it out! Recent goings-on: national anthem, Multitudes III, NE climate action workshops"Are you sitting down?" tour manager Bob Whitfield asked me back in July. The organization behind the Washington Nationals' Taiwan Day had reached out, inviting me to sing the national anthem. I was thrilled and honored. Also terrified. "The Star Spangled Banner" is a song where divas show off their pipes, instrumentalists their virtuosic clarity, arrangers their reharmonization chops. I have none of these. Plus, it's a song for going viral if you mess up. As I practiced, I noticed something in the text: it begins and ends with a question. It's a story set amid deep uncertainty, in the thick of struggle. That was my way into a song that, if I'm being honest, doesn't really fit into my corner of American culture, where critique is more correct than patriotism. I come from immigrants who fled authoritarianism to the land of opportunity, but I'm also a product of a People's History education. The struggle of so many people, over generations, under crushing opposition, to bring a nation closer to its principles and potential - that's what I hear in "The Star Spangled Banner." I hear the bravado of singing something not yet true into existence. Probably no one at Nats Park was thinking about any of this as I sang it. But it's what I was thinking about. A few weeks later I headed to Texas, to reunite with Alex Wong and the incredible Multitudes family. It'd be reasonable to assume that Multitudes is a kind of VIP-access, extended-meet-the-artists kind of event, but that's not really the vibe at all. The magic is in the people who attend, and how quickly bonds form between these remarkable folks. It's the sort of gathering where Alex and I can present an EP of songs we wrote and recorded just for this year's Multitudes: songs meant to provoke discussion in trusted circles, so they're not really meant for the contextless world of public streaming. A starlit concert became a rich conversation about the paradox of tolerance, what to do with truths that breed complacency, tiger parenting and patriotism, whether it's a relief or ruinous that nobody knows what the f*** they're doing, and so much else. Also, on the first night, someone proposed a campfire group rendition of "We've Got You (Two Truths)". I didn't realize that was a life goal until it was already happening. It's a lot, planning and hosting Multitudes. But it's so life-giving that we're determined to keep it going. With any luck, we're cultivating something that outlives our role as planners, and evolves in delightful ways we can't yet imagine. September also brought a short jaunt up to Massachusetts, to open Me & Thee Music's 57th (!!) season in Marblehead and to play at the beautifully renovated Iron Horse Music Hall (established 1979!) in Northampton - joyous, energetic evenings both. I got to partner with Sustainable Marblehead to run a climate action workshop before the Me & Thee show, and to spend a whole day exploring climate action, interdisciplinary careers, and creativity at Smith College in Northampton. (Huge thanks to Smith data sciences professor Dr. Katherine Kinnaird, who assembled a whole new cross-departmental committee to host my visit!) My favorite comment from one of the workshops: "I'd sort of assumed that someone in my position couldn't do much about climate. But it turns out there's a lot more than I thought. And it feels less overwhelming when I have some meaningful things I can do." Oh wow, you read all the way down here! Sneak preview: I've got not one, but TWO releases going up for pre-order in November. Pencil Sketches: 1995-2025, a new collection of oft-requested rarities and recently written songs, will come out on CD and vinyl for the holidays, then on streaming services in 2027. And we're thiiiiiis close to having Dreaming Through The Noise remastered for vinyl, to celebrate its 20th year in the world. How very fortunate I am to have an audience for these songs, across all these years. Thank you for being part of it. How do these days find you? What's on your mind? I'd love to hear. Love, |
Vienna Teng
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OK Reader, now I have tour dates to share with you! (In case you missed it, the last newsletter was a whole lot of updates about other stuff, like recording.) 2026 tour dates, Jul-Dec edition I'm headed for Michigan (for Blissfest), Texas (for Multitudes), the Northeast, and an end-of-year return to the Freight in California! I'm family- and new-music-focused right now, so many of these shows are driving distance from home, or combined with family visits. Other spots on the map are in the...
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