Lang Lang (pianist)
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| Lang Lang | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Born | June 14, 1982 (age 24) Shenyang, China |
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| Occupation(s) | pianist | |
| Instrument(s) | Piano | |
Lang Lang (Chinese: 郎朗, pinyin: Láng Lǎng) (born 1982-06-14) is a pianist from Shenyang, China.
[edit] Childhood
He was two years old when he saw Tom playing piano in The Cat Concerto, a Tom and Jerry cartoon on TV (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor composed by Franz Liszt). According to Lang, this first contact to the western music was what motivated him to learn piano. He began lessons at age three with Professor Zhu Ya-Fen. At the age of five he won the Shenyang Piano Competition and played his first public recital. He entered Beijing's Central Music Conservatory when he was nine, studying under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo. At 11, he was awarded first prize for outstanding artistic performance at the Fourth International Young Pianists Competition in Germany. In 1995, at 13 years of age, he played the Op. 10 and Op. 25 Chopin Etudes, at Beijing Concert Hall and, in the same year, won first place at the Tchaikovsky International Young Musicians' Competition in Japan, playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert broadcast by NHK Television. At 14 he was a featured soloist at the China National Symphony's inaugural concert, which was broadcast by CCTV and attended by President Jiang Zemin. The following year he began studies with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.
[edit] Performing and recording career
Lang Lang's breakthrough in the West came in 1999, when he was 17, with his last-minute substitution (introduced by Isaac Stern) for an indisposed André Watts at the Ravinia Festival's "Gala of the Century", in which he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Christoph Eschenbach).
Critical reaction to Lang Lang's playing has been mixed. The Chicago Tribune called him the greatest, most exciting keyboard talent encountered in many years[citation needed]. In 2001 he made his sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov, travelled to Beijing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on a tour celebrating its 100th anniversary, during which he performed to an audience of 8,000 at the Great Hall of the People, and made an acclaimed BBC Proms debut, prompting The Times of London's critic to write: "Lang Lang took a sold-out Royal Albert Hall by storm... This could well be history in the making."[citation needed] In 2003, he returned to the BBC Proms for the First Night concert with Leonard Slatkin. After his recent recital debut in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berliner Zeitung wrote: "Lang Lang is a superb musical performer whose artistic touch is always in service of the music."[citation needed]
However, Lang Lang's performances have also been heavily criticized. His performance style has been referred to as having "soggy rhythms and heavy phrasing" [1] and as being "truly boring', "just bad" and "unendurable." [2]. Critics who feel that his playing is vulgar and lacks sensitivity have given him the nickname "Bang Bang" [3] [4].
Lang Lang has performed with many of the major orchestras of the world, including the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra,Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He has collaborated with conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, Manfred Honeck and Franz Welser-Möst. - - Lang Lang is a Steinway artist. At present, he records exclusively for Deutsche Grammophon, having made previous recordings for Telarc. - - On 27 November 2006, he emigrated to Hong Kong under the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, the first person to do so under the scheme [5]. -
[edit] Awards
The subject of a best-selling biography in China, Lang Lang has received numerous awards and has been seen by millions of television viewers throughout the world. He has appeared with Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in a performance that was broadcast by Russian National Television. His 2004 performance with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Waldbühne was attended by 23,000 people and was broadcast internationally on TV. In the summer of 2002, he became the first recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, in recognition of his distinguished musical talent.
Lang Lang was recently recognized for his efforts by the United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) who appointed him their newest and youngest international Goodwill Ambassador. In this role, Lang Lang will garner support and raise funds for the survival and well-being of under-privileged children all over the world.
