Pink Martini toast the holidays with Ari Shapiro

The Boston Globe · James Sullivan · 2026-11-06 10:30 UTC

The former NPR radio personality joins the band’s three-week holiday tour, including a Dec. 17 date in New Bedford and a tour-ending show on Dec. 18 at the Berklee Performance Center.

It’s fitting that Ari Shapiro agreed to record a song with Pink Martini over cocktails. Years ago the longtime NPR radio personality befriended the members of the cosmopolitan “little orchestra,” who share his roots in Portland, Ore. After launching his radio career in Washington, D.C., he began inviting them to his place whenever they were in town.

At one cookout, the party evolved into a late-night singalong around the piano. Thomas Lauderdale, Pink Martini’s founder, called Shapiro the next morning.

“I forgot you can really sing,” he told the radio correspondent. That led to Shapiro’s first date in the studio with the group, which resulted in the playful cabaret song “But Now I’m Back.”

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