China Forbes was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts and graduated cum laude from Harvard, majoring in Visual Arts and English with a minor in Theater. After graduation, and before being lured West to sing with Pink Martini by Harvard friend and classmate Thomas Lauderdale, China performed off Broadway in New York regional theaters and as a singer/songwriter in NYC clubs.

China became the lead singer for Pink Martini in 1995 and has co-written many of the bands most beloved songs with Lauderdale, starting with “Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler),” and continuing to the most recent singles, “Lemonade Song” and “Let’s Be Friends.” Her original song, “Northern Line,” plays over the end credits of sister Maya Forbes’ directorial debut film Infinitely Polar Bear (Sony Pictures Classics). In May of 2024, China released The Road, her first solo album in 15 years, which feature all original songs including the single, “Full Circle,” and “Rise,” a deeply hopeful and personal song highlighting mental health challenges and suicide prevention.

China is the recipient of the 2022 Ella Fitzgerald Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Previous award-winners include Diana Ross, Etta James, and Liza Minnelli.

Active in Oregon politics since college, Thomas Lauderdale founded Pink Martini in 1994 to play political fundraisers for progressive causes such as civil rights, the environment, affordable housing, and public broadcasting. In addition to his work with Pink Martini, he has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Oregon Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Chamber Music Northwest, and several collaborations with Oregon Ballet Theatre. Most recently, Thomas completed an album that was decades in the making: Thomas Lauderdale Meets the Pilgrims. He is back in the studio working on a collaboration with the iconic Iranian singer, Googoosh.

Thomas currently serves on the boards of the Oregon Symphony, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Oregon Historical Society, Confluence Project with Maya Lin, and the Derek Rieth Foundation. He lives in Portland with his partner, pianist Hunter Noack.

In 1994 in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, Thomas Lauderdale was working in local politics attending every political fundraiser under the sun, but was dismayed to find the music at the events underwhelming and lackluster. Drawing inspiration from music from all over the world – crossing genres of classical, jazz, and old-fashioned pop – and hoping to appeal to conservatives and liberals alike, he founded the “little orchestra” Pink Martini in 1994 to provide more beautiful and inclusive musical soundtracks for political fundraisers for causes such as civil rights, affordable housing, the environment, libraries, public broadcasting, education, and parks.

One year later, Lauderdale called China Forbes, a Harvard classmate who was living in New York City, and asked her to join Pink Martini as the lead singer and collaborator. Their first song, “Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler),” became an overnight sensation in France, was nominated for Song of the Year at France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards, and is still the band’s number one song. Says Lauderdale, “We’re very much an American band, but we spend a lot of time abroad and therefore have the incredible diplomatic opportunity to represent a broader, more inclusive America…the America which remains the most heterogeneously populated country in the world…composed of people of every country, every language, every religion.”

Featuring a dozen musicians with songs in 25 languages, Pink Martini performs its multilingual repertoire on concert stages on six continents. After making their European debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and their orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony in 1998, the band has gone on to play with more than 50 orchestras around the world, including multiple engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Boston Pops, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London. In 2014, Pink Martini was inducted into both the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.

Pink Martini has released 11 studio albums on its own independent label, Heinz Records (named after Lauderdale’s dog), selling over 3 million albums worldwide. In 2019, the band released two EPs featuring the vocals of Pink Martini’s newest members, Jimmie Herrod and Edna Vazquez. Both vocalists have toured with the band for the past year and are officially part of the group with the release of Herrod’s EP, Tomorrow, and Vazquez’s Besame Mucho, both of which were co-produced by Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes. This year, the band is celebrating their 30th anniversary.