The Piano Man

Images: Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon. Copyright Felix Broede / DG


Brushing the lacquered keys of a Steinway piano (from his namesake ‘Lang Lang Piano Series' no less), even when he’s playing around for a shoot, he’s tinkering perfection. Prodigy, genius, wunderkind and even enlisted as Asia’s most beautiful, there are so many accolades the young pianist has acquired that whatever the media writes about him is lost in the dizzying harmony of some sweet, sensational music. P.Ramakrishnan was glad to note that, as Ray Charles famously said, genius loves company.


Without exaggeration, for millions of Chinese children around the world Lang Lang, 26, is the very apex of a near-impossible dream, a model to be held as an example of, a spectrum of what can be achieved at a very young age with absolute dedication to the craft. Not just in playing the piano, but in gaining global fame through music.

When told he’s regarded as the most famous piano player in the known universe, Lang Lang simply says, “It’s great of course,” brushing aside the burden to be held up to that unreasonable expectation. “It’s a big encouragement, not burden, and I hope I deserve it.”

From his humble beginnings in Shenyang, China, to the sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov in 2001, he has already been profiled in TIME magazine, the BBC, and 60 Minutes with the haloed reverence one reserves for that special brand of genius. His bio reads like the subject of a movie script; where the understudy takes over the role of the leading man, only to shine like never before. Lang Lang’s big breakthrough came in 1999, when at age 17, he was a last-minute substitute for an indisposed André Watts at the Ravinia Festival's "Gala of the Century." He played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to an enraptured and utterly amazed audince. Praise showered down on the, then monosyllabic and shy, young “boy wunder’ from China.”

Currently, he travels the world over to sold-out concerts, premiers with the New York ballet as an accompanying pianist, he models for mega-brands like Rolex and Steinway. At the same time, Lang Lang is recognized for his efforts by the United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) who appointed him their newest (and youngest) international Goodwill Ambassador.

The Chicago Tribune called him the greatest, most exciting keyboard talent encountered in many years and 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 abilities.

Since last seen on his profile in a segment in 60 minutes, I point out that fame becomes him. He’s turned more stylish, the hair has a trendier frizz and there’s some distinguishable “bling” on, as the buttons of his silk shirt glimmer under the chandelier of the ‘Snow White Ballroom’, where we conduct the interview prior to a private performance for a gala dinner. He almost blushes, “No I haven’t changed that much. I just have longer hair, that’s it. Nothing’s changed,” he assures me. For a classical pianist that mulls over Bach and Beethoven, the personal styling has an unexpected zing and zest. “I was younger at that time [of the documentary on 60 minutes]. When you’re younger, you don’t really pay attention to fashion. Now I mean, I like it more… fashion is more enjoyable.”

Our one-on-one interview bordered on the slightly bizarre – the confluence of high art and pop culture; at Disney Land! The prince of the pianoforte preambles in a room that is decorated by bronze sculptures of two chipmunks from the ‘Chip & Dale’ cartoon.

His passion for music was ignited by a similar cartoon so perhaps its cosmic intervention that we meet there, under the aegis of Disney’s etchings. Lang Lang was two years old when he saw the animated antics of Tom & Jerry, where the mischievous cat played a tune he couldn’t get out of his head. What he didn’t know then was, the piece that Tom the cat played on screen was Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor, composed by Franz Liszt. According to Lang Lang, this first contact to Western music was what motivated him to learn the piano. He began lessons the following year, at the ripe old age of three with Professor Zhu Ya-Fen and in two years, he won the Shenyang Piano Competition and played his first public recital.

While others were still watching Tom & Jerry on cable, nine-year-old Lang Lang entered Beijing's Central Music Conservatory, studying under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo. By age eleven, he was awarded first prize for outstanding artistic performance at the Fourth International Young Pianists Competition in Germany. In 1995, age 13, 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. 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.

“I don’t see it as I became famous so quickly. I started very early don’t forget!” he says when asked if fame met him at too young an age. He counters, fame wasn’t overnight but took two decades. When asked whether he was able to cope with the irrefutable pressure of playing in front of thousands, with a 100-piece orchestra accompanying him, when he was but a child, he simply says, “I was ready.” Ready even when he needed an extra cushion to sit before a grand piano as the music chair was too low for his petite body at age 11. He says, “I didn’t feel the pressure, just pleasure. I was enjoying what I did most in life.”

He’s been working hard his entire life. He grins and says, “I learned the word vacation when I went to America. When I was 14!” his body quivers in a chuckle. “Someone asked me, have you ever had a ‘vacation’? I didn’t even know the word for it in Chinese! What is this word ‘vacation’ I asked the translator? He said time off with no work, it took me so long to understand that word!”

This was the year when he began studies with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. “Obviously, I was brought up in China, where kids are practice freaks. Workaholics, they… well, we are a workaholic people! So I missed, the playtime, now I have lots of time to make up for it – so I travel around the globe, have fun with my friends. Swim, watch football, everything I missed out on.”



Though he doesn’t say as much, I wonder if he has any regrets of the opportunity foregone in his quest for musical greatness. In his newly acquired fluency in English, he says, “I was never depressed about the constant practice I did. Well, when I was nine-years-old, I was kicked out by a teacher for being naughty! I was sad then, but otherwise…”. He flicks his hair back and continues. “But then again, I knew of nothing else but the piano too. I mean I liked playing and watching football – I still do but I practiced the piano and didn’t think about it. I just played the piano. When you know no other life, you’re not missing out on anything right?”

Watching his head move in tandem to the music he plays, one wonders which solar system his mind travels to in the deep recess of a two hour-long concert. “I just go somewhere into the music, something to connect. I don’t need the sheet of music in front of me, once you’ve practiced as long as I have, then you just play with great enjoyment,” he tries to explain his trance like state that’ been often written about. “You really need to focus, you really focus and think of nothing else but the music, you feel it, so it’s been quite a challenging career from the beginning. It’s always challenging, never easy.”

He just makes it look easy.