World-Renowned Classical Crossover Virtuosi Few Of A Kind Form New Collaboration For Self-Titled Debut Album Few of a Kind

Adhyâropa Records is thrilled to announce Few Of A Kind (ÂR00156), a new collaboration featuring beloved indie singer-songwriter Vienna Teng (piano, vocals), Brandon Ridenour (Canadian Brass), Ben Russell (Max Richter), Yousif Sheronick (Philip Glass), and Andrew Gutauskas (Brass Against).

Few Of A Kind’s mission is to combine the sounds of classical chamber music, improvisation, and folk storytelling into a new sound. With Teng and Russell’s showstopping vocals at the fore, underpinned by one of the most eclectic and virtuosic ensembles this side of The Silk Road Ensemble, Few Of A Kind is a sonic cabaret you simply have to hear to believe. 

And if ever there was a lineup of musicians to undertake this mission, it would be this one. On piano and vocals is polymath Vienna Teng. A graduate of Stanford and the University of Michigan (with master's degrees in both science and business administration), Teng took detours in software engineering before returning to music full time. Teng has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition and The Late Show with David Letterman among many others, and toured with the likes of Duncan Sheik, Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Joan Osborne, India.Arie, and Brandi Carlile. PopMatters said of her 2013 release Aims: “She has a gift for adventurous melody and a penchant for layered harmonies, and she’s not afraid to take some aural chances… Vienna Teng is very, very smart, and she’s got a few things to teach you.” 

Musically, however, Teng is just the tip of the iceberg of Few of a Kind’s virtuosic and compositional talent. Brandon Ridenour (trumpet) is a Juilliard professor who has won the International Trumpet Guild and Concert Artist Guild competitions, was a member of the Canadian Brass, and has collaborated with Sting, James Taylor, Esperanza Spalding, and Caroline Shaw. He has performed with the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. 

Ben Russell (violin) is a current member of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and has performed with Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Björk, Jonny Greenwood, Paul McCartney, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson and The National. 

Hailed by the New York Times for his “wizardry on a range of humble frame drums,” Yousif Sheronick (percussion) has performed with Philip Glass, Yo-Yo Ma, Laurie Anderson, Silk Road Ensemble, Branford Marsalis, Sonny Fortune, and Paul Winter, and premiered new music by Evan Ziporyn, Derek Bermel, Kenji Bunch, Ljova and John Patitucci. 

Grammy Award-winning Andrew Gutauskas (saxes and reeds) is the music director for the genre-bending group Brass Against, whose arrangement of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Wake Up’ was featured in The Matrix Resurrections. He has also performed with Miho Hazama's M_Unit, Charlie Rosen’s 8-Bit Big Band, and many more. 

But it’s not enough just to gather talents; it takes a special spark to create musical alchemy like Few Of A Kind. “I’m thrilled by how much space for individuality is evident in every note,” Russell says. “These four songs are just the beginning of what I feel like this band is capable of creating together.”

Teng’s ‘Transcontinental, 1:30am’ (originally from her 2006 album Dreaming Through The Noise) is the second on the bill, and a perfect exemplar of the creative identity of the band. Shades of Tom Waits color Teng’s achingly gorgeous, yearning song, and the accompanying musicians duck in and out of the texture around her. Where the original had a café feel hinting at a bossa, with Teng’s signature close-mic, intimate vocal sound, this version expands the sonic palette while adding an oblique reverb to Teng’s vocals; the meaning of the song is utterly transformed. The lyric “Wait, don't let this line go slack / Don't go alone into the cold / Wait, don't give up on this yet / I know that there's more you haven't told” now sounds less like a plea for action than a forlorn remembrance, or an echo from the past. Russell adds an Andrew Bird-esque strummed violin and Ridenour recalls Miles Davis’ ghostly score for Louis Malle’s Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud with held, Harmon-muted notes. Gutauskas’ lonely baritone sax solo completes the transformation: what was a stark jazz ballad is now a shivering noir for rainy solitude.

“One thing that’s important to us is that no style of music be off-limits, despite the conventions of our instrumentation,” Ridenour says. Arrangements were decided on democratically in rehearsals, so that the creative agency of each musician would be apparent in every note. This is evident in the first track on the EP, Gutauskas’ ‘Five’s Alive,’ an angular, wordless, largely improvised chamber piece that gives each musician room to stretch out on their instruments, especially Sheronick. The piece closes with an extended percussion break in which Sheronick skitters between set, frame drum, and doumbek, a cyclone of polyrhythms which the other musicians gleefully encourage.

The textures the ensemble created introduced a peculiar dichotomy, in which each musician was granted space to speak in their own voice and vocabulary, but doing so meant they were simultaneously working outside their comfort zone as well. “Every song has at least a section where everyone is improvising,” Ridenour says. “It might be scary, coming from more of a classical background, but also thrilling because of the caliber of the musicians we get to work with and the trust we have in each other.” 

The excitement that dichotomy generates is apparent on the track ‘Alone,’ composed by Ridenour using text from the Maya Angelou poem of the same name. “It’s nominally about loneliness but it’s really more about community,” he says. “The message of the poem is how difficult it is to navigate life trying to do things alone, and how dark things can get on the outside and in the interior. This makes it a good song for us because of how it speaks to the difference in our musical backgrounds, but together we make for a stronger community.” “Lying, thinking last night / How to find my soul a home / Where water is not thirsty / And bread loaf is not stone / I came up with one thing and I don’t believe I’m wrong / That nobody but nobody can make it out here alone,” sung in alternating verses by Russell and Teng until their voices intertwine in exquisite harmony, while the instrument flit and dance around them, is as close to a mission statement as the band has. There’s a theatricality to the sly nods to Louis Armstrong’s ‘St. James Infirmary’ and Chopin’s Funeral March in the arrangement that elevates the performance; fans of Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown wouldn’t be far off in recognizing a musical kinship.

The final tune, Russell’s arrangement of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s ‘Two Steps From The Blues,’ delivers the gospel legend’s melancholy song with a dash of sardonic humor its composer would certainly have approved of; “The reason we didn't get along was telegrams and telephones / One brings bad news, the other rendezvous / That keep me two steps from the blues,” is lyrically timely in a way its composer couldn’t have imagined. Russell delivers his vaudevillian vocal performance to the back row, and the ensemble matches his energy with instrumental whoops and shouts.

That energy is palpable throughout this stunning debut. There’s a feeling around the members of Few Of A Kind of a kid that just found the sweets cabinet – a giddy elation that this combination of musicians and musics might have unlocked something that will open extraordinary musical possibilities in the years to come.

Artist: Few Of A Kind

Album Title: Few Of A Kind

Label: Adhyâropa Records

Release Date: January 5th, 2026 (single: ‘Five’s Alive’); January 14th, 2026 (single: ‘Alone’); January 23rd, 2026 (album: Few Of A Kind)

Purchase: https://fewofakind.bandcamp.com/album/few-of-a-kind

Performers: Vienna Teng (piano, vocals); Ben Russell (violin, vocals); Brandon Ridenour (trumpet); Andrew Gutauskas (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet); Yousif Sheronick (percussion)