VAIL, Colorado — Up until seven years ago, Vienna Teng — who performs in Colorado's Vail Valley Saturday night — spent more time in front of a computer than an audience. Then she took a leap. Teng, a Stanford-educated software engineer, ditched her desk job to pursue her real passion: a music career.

“As funny as it sounds, the reason I studied computer science was so that I could buy myself some time so I could figure out how to go into music,” Teng, 31, said during a recent phone interview. “It took me a while to figure out if I wanted to pursue music as a long-time thing.”

The leap seems to have paid off. Though Teng might not be super well known yet, the key word here is “yet. “

“She sounds like a siren,” said Sarah Dixon, of the Vilar Performing Arts Center. “She's been compared to Tori Amos and Norah Jones. I honestly think it's going to be one of those ‘I saw her back when' kind of things.”

Some of of the songs on her new album, “Inland Territory,” are moody and musing — it's soundtrack to disappear inside your head too while soaking in the bathtub. Some songs are more high-energy folk and others are more indie pop. No matter what the sound, the lyrics are compelling, with subjects ranging from her Chinese-American background to social and environmental causes.

Her influences, according to her MySpace page, is her parents' record collection, the soundtrack to her childhood: Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Mozart and Beethoven and ‘60s Mandarin pop. Later on, it was pianist-songwriters like Elton John, Billy Joel and Tori Amos.

“These days I'm influenced by whoever intimidates me,” she wrote. “I hear them, I'm astounded by them, I think daily about quitting music because I'll never be able to do it as well as they do. Then I try to steal from them without imitating. A tricky thing.”

Mourning the mundane

We caught up with Teng last week while she was in Northern California, heading to Chico to play a gig. Since she put out her new album in April, she's been traveling almost constantly.

“I've been living out of suitcase for the past few months,” she said. “I realized recently that I haven't slept in the same bed for more than three days in months. I've been in motion for quite awhile and I've become envious of the most mudane things, like people going grocery shopping.”

Her tour schedule brings her to Beaver Creek on Saturday for a performance at the Vilar Center. Teng is the second in the Vilar's singer/songwriter series. She'll perform with Alex Wong, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who co-produced “Inland Territory.”

While Teng mostly plays the piano on stage — she studied classical piano from age 5 on — Wong plays a myriad of percussion instruments. He collects odd instruments, and you never know what he'll bring to the show, Teng said.

“What's really impressive is he'll often be playing a lot of different instruments at the same time,” she said.

‘Who do you think you are?'

“Inland Territory” is her fourth album and it's both complex and deeply introspective. It was recorded over five months, in four different cities. Instruments range from orchestral percussion to found-object loops to polyphonic choirs.

Her favorite song to play live from the 12-song collection is the upbeat, foot stomper “Grandmother Song,” which was recorded live in an old Victorian house in San Francisco. In the song, Teng channels her grandmother, singing words her protective grandma might have said to her, cautioning against a life in the music business.

“You're turning 30 and still trying to sing your songs/ Come on who do you think you are ...

“How you gonna raise a family when you're on the road with some tattoed boy with a guitar

Take it from your grandmother I've been ‘round.”

The song is a revelation for Teng, a first-generation Chinese-American who previously avoided writing about her cultural heritage.

“It took me awhile to grow up to the point where I could write it,” she said. “Where it would come across in the way I meant, and people are laughing about what my grandma said and cheering for her at the same time, recognizing that relationship that's in all families.”

High Life Editor Caramie Schnell can be reached at 970-748-2984 or cschnell@vaildaily.com.