WORCESTER — It didn't happen right away, but it really wasn't too long before singer China Forbes said, "Je dis oui!" ("I say yes") to the multilingual, multimusical genre mix that is Pink Martini.

"It was just a lark at first," Forbes recalled of going out to Portland, Oregon, to sing for a musical group that her fellow Harvard University classmate and graduate Thomas Lauderdale had put together back in his hometown as pianist and music director. The band, which calls itself a little orchestra, was stirring together classic American jazz and swing with dashes of classical music, Latin, contemporary pop and rock.

"I started to really love being a part of that group of people," said Forbes, who was born and raised in Cambridge. "The musicianship was so amazing. It was the kind of music that brought together everything I could do. It was this very happy accident for me." From doing covers, the band started to write its own songs. "Once they started writing songs, there was nothing missing for me."

Forbes moved to Portland.

Pink Martini with China Forbes is on a tour right now and comes to The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts for a show at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3.

Forbes knows this neck of the woods from growing up in Cambridge. "I used to go to the Worcester Centrum," she said of what is now the DCU Center during a recent telephone interview. "That was the place we could see concerts."

Pink Martini is heading to a lot of places on the current tour, including China, France, Hawaii, Japan, Malaysia, Romania and Singapore, besides a number of dates stateside. "We're going all over the place. A long stretch of travel," Forbes said.

Speaking of worldwide, "Je dis oui!" Pink Martini's ninth and latest studio album, features songs in French, Farsi, Armenian, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Xhosa and English.

Meanwhile, the band's first album, "Sympathique," has been rereleased for a 20th anniversary edition.

The title song, in French, shows how well Forbes' voice makes Pink Martini a smooth taste of swing with some shakes of audaciousness.

Forbes said that the song was a breakthrough for the band. "Sympathique" was the first song Lauderdale and Forbes wrote together, and it was released at a time of labor unrest in France. With lyrics such as "Je ne veux pas travailler" ("I do not want to work") nonchalantly delivered, the song caught on there.

"That was just like perfect timing. The song became so popular in France you couldn't find a French person who didn't know the song," Forbes said.

As was alluded to earlier, Forbes and Pink Martini don't just sing and write songs in French, but Forbes had a French background with her half-French father, Donald Cameron Forbes, and a French grandfather. Her mother, Peggy Forbes, is African-American.

Her upbringing had some unusual circumstances, which were recounted in the fictional 2014 comedy-drama movie "Infinitely Polar Bear," written and directed by her sister, Maya Forbes. In the film, a manic-depressive mess of a father tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier.

It works out.

At Harvard University, China Forbes won the Jonathan Levy prize for acting and after graduating was an actor off-Broadway and played music.

"I was fully planning on being a singer/songwriter and I had my own band," she said.

"Thomas (Lauderdale) asked me to help out."

Although the album "Sympathique" has been rereleased, "we always perform songs from that album. It is the anniversary, but it hasn't really changed the set list that much," Forbes said. "We have so many songs that there are songs that get set aside. There's so many old songs that I love performing. It's kind of overwhelming to make the set list. That's why Thomas (Lauderdale) does it at the last minute."

The majority of numbers on "Sympathique" were covers, Forbes noted (including "Que Sera Sera," "Never on a Sunday" and "Brazil"). "In seven years we went from mostly covers to mostly originals. It was a very creative period." The band's second album, "Hang on Little Tomato," was released seven years after "Sympathique." The title song of Pink Martini's third album, "Hey Eugene!," is Forbes' popular recounting of a man who never called her after asking for her telephone number at a party.

"Je dis oui!" includes guest singer Rufus Wainwright singing a version of the Rodgers & Hart classic “Blue Moon" and also marks the singing debut of two longtime friends of the band, fashion guru Ikram Goldman and civil rights activist Kathleen Saadat.

"I would say we've kind of gone back to doing more covers and adding more people to the band," Forbes said. "More musicians, lots of guest singers. You never know who's gonna show up. It's like a party. It's always a surprise."

But one surprise that snuck up and then suddenly struck Forbes was an unwanted guest.

She encountered serious vocal troubles that required surgery in 2011 after repeated hemorrhaging of a vocal cord was causing her to lose her voice.

"I had a toddler (her son Cameron with husband Adam Levey) and was catching colds. I would have to go on tour and had vulnerable vocal cords," she said. "I thought I was hoarse from a cold. Then I didn't have a cold anymore and still sounded hoarse. It was totally shocking," Forbes said.

Her doctor prescribed complete vocal rest. "Don't talk for two weeks. Then he added another week."

The decision to have surgery was "scary, but if you don't you can risk hemorrhaging again. I took the risk because I felt I was holding back singing. I'm so glad I did it."

It's been seven years and no more serious problems, she said.

The experience "made me completely grateful for my voice, and I'm much more careful with it. I just use it judiciously. I don't waste my voice … In loud restaurants I don't talk over the din of the restaurant."

In Forbes' absence, singer Storm Large, who grew up in Southboro, toured with Pink Martini in 2011 and has since been a co-lead singer.

Besides Pink Martini, Forbes would definitely say yes to being in a musical on Broadway.

"Yes, that's my dream," she said. "I don't know how to make it happen. I'll play Miss Hannigan in the revival of 'Annie.' If I wait long enough there's a whole crop of roles I'll be able to play."

Or she could write a musical. "I'd love to collaborate with my sister," she said.

However, touring with Pink Martini will be taking up a good part of her time through to the new year and beyond.

Asked if audiences can vary from country to country, Forbes said, "Asia is definitely different. In most cities it's more reserved. In Korea it's the opposite — it's the most exuberant."

On the other hand, "it's really the venues more than the culture," she said. At a club with people standing there's "more energy. Usually by the end of our show everyone's up in a conga line."

The Hanover Theatre is a larger venue, but Forbes could see Pink Martini shaking and stirring up a conga line there as well.

"Yes, we hope so," she said.

Contact Richard Duckett at richard.duckett@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @TGRDuckett











