China Forbes

China Forbes (born April 29, 1970) is an American singer and songwriter who has been the lead singer of the band Pink Martini since 1995. In 2022 she was the Ella Fitzgerald award winner at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. The daughter of Peggy (née Woodford) and Donald Cameron Forbes, China Forbes was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father was of French and Scottish descent, and her mother is African-American. She attended Phillips Exeter Academy ('88), then studied visual arts at Harvard University, where she met Thomas Lauderdale, a classically trained pianist. They became friends and met regularly to play music together. At Harvard, she won the Jonathan Levy Prize for acting. After graduating in 1992, Forbes worked as an actress for several years, performing Off-Broadway in New York City. She then became a musician, forming a band and recording a solo album. She sang the song "Ordinary Girl" for the television series Clueless and "Que Sera Sera" over the...