Once the boy wonder of classical music, superstar pianist Lang Lang now tempers his flamboyant virtuosity with a new-found intellectual rigour, and is devoting more energy to his educational foundation.
One of the most famous classical musicians in the world today – and certainly one the best-known concert pianists – Lang Lang, who took up the instrument at the age of three and was performing and winning competitions just two years later, is, at the age of 37, something of a phenomenon. Named by Time magazine in 2009 as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, he’s played for princes, presidents and prime ministers, and has been repeatedly praised not only for his absolute mastery of his chosen instrument, but also for his tireless efforts as an educator and populariser of classical music, which can only be described as evangelical.
Born in the northern Chinese industrial city of Shenyang in 1982, as a child he was driven mercilessly by his policeman father, who’d decided that his son would become the greatest classical musician in the country. In the event
– and after one major hiccup when, at the age of nine, he was told by his then teacher that he’d never make it as a concert pianist – he achieved much more than that. In his mid-teens he and his father left the Beijing slum where they’d been living and moved to the United States. Lang Lang enrolled at the famous Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and, two years later, burst on to the international stage after standing in with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a sick André Watts.
Since then he’s lived like a rock star, hobnobbing with rappers and superstars of sport, with whose lifestyles he often identifies. Known initially for his dazzling technique and deeply emotional interpretations of the romantic repertoire, including works by Chopin, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, he’s also collaborated with jazz musicians such as Herbie Hancock, the singer-songwriter Billy Joel and even the rock bank Metallica, as well as recording music for the video game Gran Turismo 5. An injury to his left arm in 2017 threatened to destroy his career and kept him from performing for more than a year; his return to the stage has seen him exploring the more cerebral side of his prodigious talent by focussing on rigorously intellectual works, such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations. And last year his life took another change of direction when he married the German-Korean pianist Gina Alice Redlinger; the couple divide their time between homes in Beijing, Paris and New York.
In Hong Kong for a private performance earlier this year, Lang Lang found time to sit for an exclusive photo shoot with Prestige, talking to everyone and delighting them with his easy charm and self-deprecatory humour. Although now nearer 40 than 30, he brimmed with an enthusiasm that can only be called boyish, revealing himself to be a born communicator and talking at length – and in an accent located midway in the Pacific between China and North America – about his educational foundation and its frankly inspirational aim to spread a knowledge and love of music to young people around the world.
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