She still spends a lot of time on her keyboard, but it's a different type of keyboard—one whose sounds are music to the ears—and she's playing it in front of fans across the United States.

With the release of her second CD, titled Warm Strangers, Teng is climbing her way to the top of the music industry.

"It's kind of surreal," says the 25-year-old Saratoga native and former Cisco Systems software engineer. "I never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to make good music."

Good? Try mesmerizing. Spellbinding. Refreshing.

At least that's how fans who attended her June 1 concert at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose described her performance.

"She has the clearest, sweetest voice there ever was," says Palo Alto resident Michael Saunders. "Every note is perfect."

His brother, David, agrees.

"Her songs are very melodious," he says. "They're beautifully sung and have thoughtful lyrics."

The Saunders brothers say they love Teng's music so much that they have bought 10 CDs so far to give to friends and family members.

"They make great gifts," Michael says.

Being in the spotlight was something Teng—actually a stage name—says she never really got into.

"I was never a popular kid in school," she says. "I don't do what I do for the fame factor. It actually feels weird for me to be the center of attention."

But it's something she gradually had to get used to. Shortly after the release of her first CD, titled Waking Hour, she appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and had camera crews from CNN follow her around her San Francisco apartment.

"It was really weird," she says. "It's sort of like when you're lying. If you want to lie about something, you try to act normal, and if you do that for a while, you sort of forget what normal is like."

And that's just the beginning. Aside from practically owning more than 10 pages on Yahoo!, she was featured on the Wayne Brady Show this past March, she had one of her songs played on the NBC show Ed and her's is a familiar voice on the KFOG radio station.

With so many places to be and fans to please, it's almost impossible to track down the musician. She's been on tour promoting her CD for a majority of the year and has a full calendar ahead of her.

"I'm on the road more than I am at home," she says. "Traveling is an interesting way of living. Being on tour definitely has its ups and downs. On one hand, you get to visit all these interesting places that you always wanted to see and you meet a lot of great people, not to mention a few creepy ones who you just can't seem to get away from. It's also a nice escape from the everyday business stuff. My obligations shrink down a lot when I'm away from home. There's not much I have to do besides get to the show and check my email once a day."

But the downside to being away from home all the time, as Teng explains, is having to deal with all the traveling fuss.

"At this point in my career, being on tour is not all that glamorous. Basically, you get on a plane with a lot of equipment, and the flight attendant tells you the keyboard is too big to fit in the overhead or your luggage gets lost somewhere. Then you have to cram all the equipment in a rental van and get lost on the road," she says.

So what does she miss the most when she's away from home?

"I miss the stability of a home," she says. "I miss arriving to the same place every night. Sometimes I just want to stay in one place for a while and hang out with friends."

Teng says she's had her lonely moments while on tours, but she's also met and opened for several well-known musicians including folk singer Joan Baez and Shawn Colvin.

Getting invitations to play at concerts wasn't always easy, Teng admits. She started out playing at small coffee shops after putting in an eight-hour shift at work.

"It was kind of scary at first," she says. "I would never know how the audience would react to my music."

Her first major performance was at Bazaar Café in San Francisco. She remembers it as being nerve-racking.

"I tried to get the audience to sing along to a song that had a lot of words," she said. "It didn't happen. Even my friends, who knew the song, didn't want to sing along. And from that, I learned the trick to having the audience sing along—keep it short and simple. But, it's actually good to do that sort of thing, especially early on, because you learn by trial and error."

Teng began putting together notes and lyrics at the age of 6 and completed her first song, "Say Uncle," 10 years later. Her passion for music stuck with her throughout her years at Saratoga High School, where she got her first formal training in breathing techniques and posture as a member of the school's jazz choir, and in her college career at Stanford University. There she took part in the a cappella singing and chamber music groups, all the while majoring in computer science and spending late nights and early mornings trying to make a computer program work.

Like many children of immigrant Asian parents, Teng had her mind on being a doctor.

"I always thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool to see myself in a doctor's coat or see my name in a doctor's office?' But I realized I was seeing that from a third-person perspective, whereas when I pictured myself as a musician, it was never of me on the cover of a magazine," Teng says.

The computer geek—as she calls herself—turned full-time singer and songwriter says she has no regrets about switching careers.

"It sounds cliché, but life is short. You might as well do what you love," she says.

Teng will be busy performing at various concerts in the Midwest to East Coast throughout June. She will return to her hometown for a concert at Villa Montalvo on Oct. 22.

For more information about Vienna Teng, check out her website at www.viennateng.com.