[Free E Book Download In Pdf Lang Lang Piano Book
Luther Lazaro
Lang Lang was born in Liaoning, China, in 1982 to a family of the Manchu Niohuru clan. His father Lang Guoren is a musician, playing the erhu.[3] Both his father and mother, also a musician, were displaced to work on rural rice farms in the country during the Cultural Revolution, before Lang was born.[4]
The Tom and Jerry episode The Cat Concerto, which features Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2., motivated two-year-old Lang to learn the piano.[5][6] He started lessons with Zhu Yafen at age three, won first place at the Shenyang Piano Competition and performed his first public recital when he was five.[7]
When Lang was nine, he was expelled from his piano tutor's studio for "lack of talent".[8][4] Another music teacher at his state school noticed Lang and asked him to play the second movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10, which reminded Lang of his love for the instrument.[8] Lang later studied under Zhao Ping-Guo at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music.[9]
Lang won the Xinghai National Piano Competition in Beijing in 1993 and first prize for outstanding artistic performance at the International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, Germany, in 1994.[7] In 1995, Lang played the Chopin tudes at the Beijing Concert Hall, won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan,[7] and performed as soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.[10] Fourteen-year-old Lang was a featured soloist for the China National Symphony's inaugural concert in September 1996, then Chinese president Jiang Zemin met Lang Lang after this performance.
Lang's performance style was controversial when he stormed into the classical music scene in 1999. At that time, pianist Earl Wild called him "the J. Lo of the piano."[16] Others have described him as immature, but admitted that his ability to "conquer crowds with youthful bravado" is phenomenal among classical musicians.[17] His maturity in subsequent years was reported by The New Yorker: "The ebullient Lang Lang is maturing as an artist."[17] In April 2009, when Time magazine included Lang in its list of the 100 most influential people, Herbie Hancock described his playing as "so sensitive and so deeply human", commenting: "You hear him play, and he never ceases to touch your heart."[18]
Lang was the featured soloist on the Golden Globe-winning score of The Painted Veil and can be heard on the soundtrack of The Banquet.[22] He has recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc labels. His album of the first and fourth Beethoven piano concertos with the Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach debuted at No. 1 on the Traditional Classical Billboard Chart.[23] In 2008, he was the pianist on Mike Oldfield's 2008 album Music of the Spheres.[24] In 2010, he signed with Sony for a reported $3 million.[25] Metallica performed the song One alongside Lang at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014.
Lang has also recorded piano works for the video game Gran Turismo 5's soundtrack, mostly under the "Classical" subgenre.[27] This included versions of Danny Boy, "Scott Joplin's The Entertainer", Beethoven's 8th Piano Sonata, and one of the game's intro pieces, the third movement from Prokofiev's 7th Piano Sonata.
Lang has played for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, President Hu Jintao, President Horst Khler, Prince Charles (now Charles III), then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Polish President Lech Kaczyński.[28]
At the White House state dinner in honour of President of China Hu Jintao on 19 January 2011, one of the tunes Lang played was the song "My Motherland" from the movie Battle on Shangganling Mountain, an anti-imperialist film on the Korean War. The song's lyrics include the line "We deal with wolves with guns", which in the film referred indirectly to the United States Army.[31][32] Although the tune is popular and has lost much of its political and historical significance in China,[33] the performance was interpreted by American conservatives as insulting the US.[34]
In response to the controversy, Lang denied that he intended to insult the United States.[35] He later released a statement stating that he "selected this song because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody."[35] White House spokesperson Tommy Vietor also responded by saying My Motherland is "widely known and popular in China for its melody. Lang played the song without lyrics or reference to any political theme... any suggestion that this was an insult to the United States is just flat wrong."[36]
In July 2007, he played at a concert from the Teatro del Silenzio, Lajatico, Italy, hosted by Andrea Bocelli. He performed "Io ci sar" with Bocelli, and Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody". The performance is available on a DVD entitled Vivere Live in Tuscany.[39]
In December 2007, Lang performed at the Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm.[38] Collaborating with Seiji Ozawa, he appeared at the New Year's Eve gala opening for the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.[22] He also participated in the opening concert at Munich's Olympic Stadium with Mariss Jansons, marking the commencement of the 2006 FIFA World Cup,[40] and, in a celebratory concert held the night before the last match of the 2008 Euro Cup finals, Lang played with the Vienna Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta in front of Schnbrunn Palace.[41]
In 2008, an audience estimated at between one and four billion people saw Lang's performance in Beijing's opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics where he was promoted as a symbol of the youth and future of China.[42] During these games, he was also featured on the German TV network ZDF and made several appearances on NBC's The Today Show Summer Olympics broadcasts. In the opening ceremony, he performed a melody from the Yellow River Cantata with five-year-old Li Muzi.[43] Lang also collaborated with a German band, Schiller, to record "Time for Dreams", used to promote some coverage of the 2008 Olympics broadcast in Germany.
In February 2008, Lang and jazz pianist Herbie Hancock performed together at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, playing George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. The two were again brought in by United Airlines for the reintroduction of their "It's Time to Fly" advertising campaign with a series of new animated commercials aired during the 2008 Summer Olympics.[44] In April 2008, he premiered Tan Dun's First Piano Concerto, subtitled "The Fire".[45] Hancock and Lang continued to collaborate with a world tour in summer 2009. Lang played at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for US President Barack Obama and at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo the next day.[46]
Lang was featured in the award-winning German-Austrian documentary Pianomania,[50] which was directed by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis. The film premiered theatrically in North America, Asia and throughout Europe, and is a part of the Goethe-Institut catalogue.[51]
In June 2012, he played Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace.[55]In 2012, Lang gave a masterclass to a select few pianists at the Royal College of Music featuring Lara meroğlu and Martin James Bartlett.
On 24 September 2015, Lang performed the "Edvard Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16" at the New York Philharmonic Opening Gala Concert, Alan Gilbert (conductor) at the David Geffen Hall, New York City.
On 7 May 2023, Lang performed at the Coronation Concert, held in celebration of the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla the day before.[59] Lang played the piano for the song "Reflection", from Disney's 1998 animated film Mulan, accompanied by singer Nicole Scherzinger.[60]
Lang's autobiography, Journey of a Thousand Miles, published by Random House in 8 languages, was released in the summer of 2008. Delacorte Press also released a version of the autobiography specifically for younger readers, entitled Playing with Flying Keys.
Lang Lang has received many awards and made many television appearances. His DG recording of Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 4 with Christoph Eschenbach was nominated for a Grammy Award during the year of its release.
He appeared in Time magazine's 2009 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World,[18] and in Gramophone magazine's Hall of Fame in 2012.[61] In 2008, the Recording Academy named him their Cultural Ambassador to China.[62] More recently, Lang has been chosen as an official worldwide ambassador to the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Lang was appointed by the United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) as an International Goodwill Ambassador in 2004.[63] The Chinese government selected him as a vice-president of the All-China Youth Federation.[64]
On 22 July 2012, Lang carried the London 2012 Olympic torch through Hornchurch on its Redbridge to Bexley leg. On 24 August 2012, he was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his engagement in the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.[70]
Lang Lang has endorsed multiple P2P platforms, including those accused of illegal fundraising, such as 88 Wealth[73] and Solarbao.[74][75] These P2P platforms have been accused of illegal absorption of public deposits, fictitious investment projects, high-interest lending, and liquidity crises.[76][77][78] Lang Lang has not promptly made public explanations or responses to the issues concerning these platforms, at the same time his company penalised administratively as he failed to publish required annual reports for three consecutive years.[73][79]
International Jazz Day is the culmination of Jazz Appreciation Month, which draws public attention to jazz and its extraordinary heritage throughout April. Courtesy of International Jazz Day hide caption
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