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Lang Lang and 5-year-old Li Muzi play a romantic tune together By Tim Hipps, U.S. Army –

Top 10 Surprising Facts about Lang Lang

Lang Lang is a Chinese concert pianist. He has performed with leading orchestras in China, Europe, and the United States among other places. He has been active since the 1990s. Lang became the first Chinese pianist to be engaged by the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and some top American Orchestras. Let鈥檚 dive right into the surprising facts about Lang Lang.

1. Learnt how to play piano early

Lang Lang was born on 14^th June 1982, in Shenyang, Liaoning in China. He was born to a family of Manchu ethnicity, with his father Lang Guoren a musician playing the erhu. After watching an episode of Tom and Jerry, The Cat Concerto, two-year-old Lang became motivated to learn the piano. He took lessons with Zhu Ya-Fen at just the age of three, won first place at the Shenyang Piano Competition, and performed his first public recital when he was five.

At the age of nine, Lang got expelled from a tutor鈥檚 studio for 鈥渓ack of talent鈥�. A music teacher at his state school asked him to play the second movement of Mozart鈥檚 Piano Sonata No. 10. The teacher had noticed Lang鈥檚 sadness, and this reminded Lang of his love for the instrument.  Lang later studied under Zhao Ping-Guo at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music and went on to win the Xinghai National Piano Competition in Beijing in 1993. In 1997, Lang and his father moved to the United States so that he could study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

2. Pianist

Lang Lang By Photo: Andreas Praefcke –

At an early age, Lang came across an episode of the Tom and Jerry, The Cat Concerto. It featured Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, this episode motivated two-year-old Lang to learn the piano. At the age of three, he started taking lessons with Zhu Ya-Fen. This leads him to win first place at the Shenyang Piano Competition.

While he was nine, a tutor expelled him from his studio for 鈥渓ack of talent鈥�. Another music teacher at his state school noticed Lang’s sadness and asked him to play the second movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 10. This reminded Lang of his love for the instrument.

Later on, Lang studied under Zhao Ping-Guo at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. In 1993, he won the Xinghai National Piano Competition held in Beijing and took the first prize for an outstanding artistic performance at the International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, Germany, in 1994. He then moved to Philadelphia in 1997 with his father to study music at the Curtis Institute of Music.

3 His performing and recording career was controversial 

When he first stormed into the classical music scene in 1999, his performance style was controversial. While pianist Earl Wind called him 鈥渢he J. Lo of the piano鈥�, others saw him as immature. T, hey, however, admitted that his ability to 鈥渃onquer crowds with youthful bravado鈥� is phenomenal among classical musicians. The New Yorker described him as saying 鈥淭he ebullient Lang Lang is maturing as an artist鈥�.

In 2001, after a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov, he traveled to Beijing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on a tour celebrating its 100th anniversary. During this time there, he performed to an audience of 8,000 at the Great Hall of the People. 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.

He has recorded for the Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc labels. His album of the first and fourth Beethoven piano concertos with the Orchestre de 麻豆APP and Christoph Eschenbach debuted at No. 1 on the Traditional Classical Billboard Chart. In 2008, he was the pianist on Mike Oldfield’s 2008 album Music of the Spheres. In 2010, he signed with Sony for a reported $3 million. Metallica performed the song One alongside Lang at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in 2014. In December 2008, Lang partnered with Google and YouTube in the project YouTube Symphony Orchestra.

4 selected appearances

Lang Lang, Pianist By Lang_Lang –

Lang has performed at various open-air venues, including Central Park New York, Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles, the Ravinia Festival Chicago, Theaterplatz in Dresden, and Derby Park Hamburg. In 2007 he performed “Io ci sar貌” with Bocelli, and Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody”. This happened at a concert held at the Teatro del Silenzio, Lajatico, Italy, and was hosted by Andrea Bocelli. Lang also performed at the Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm. He made an appearance at the New Year鈥檚 gala while collaborating with Seiji Ozawa. They were opening the National Center for the Performing Art in Beijing.

Lang also performed in Beijing鈥檚 opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The event had an estimated one to four billion audiaudiences witnessing Lang perform. At the 50^th Annual Grammy Awards, Lang and jazz pianist Herbie Hancock performed together and played George Gershwin鈥檚 Rhapsody in Blue. The two continued to collaborate with a world tour in the summer of 2009. In addition, Lang played at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for US President Barack Obama at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo the next day. These are just but a few of the appearances that Lang has done among the many.

5 He has an autobiography  written

Journey of a Thousand Miles is Lang鈥檚 autobiography that has been published in eight languages. It was released in the summer of 2008 by Random House publishers. Another version of the same autobiography was released. It was entitled 鈥楶laying with Flying Keys鈥�, this was done by Delacorte Press to target younger readers.

6 Lang Lang has many awards

Lang Lang has received several awards with numerous television appearances. His DG recording of Beethoven Piano Concertos became Numbers. 1 and 4 with Christoph Eschenbach. It became nominated for a Grammy Award during the year of its release. Also, his Chopin Album with Sony received the 2013 Echo Klassik Award.

7. He married a fellow pianist

In June 2019, Lang married German Korean pianist Gina Alice Redlinger in 麻豆APP, France. They welcomed their first child in January 2021. As a global sensation in playing the piano, Lang is no stranger to success. His current net worth is estimated to be around $ 30 million. Lang has also sold millions of albums around the world and numerously topped the Classical charts. 

8. Controversy over the White House state dinner

Lang Lang in St. Petersburg By SAMA990 –

On the 19^th of January, 2011, the White House state dinner was held with the President of China Hu Jintao in attendance. Lang chose to play the song 鈥淢y Motherland鈥� from the movie Battle on Shangganling Mountain, it is an anti-imperialist film on the Korean War. The song has a line that says 鈥淲e deal with wolves with guns鈥�, which in the film referred indirectly to the United States Army. As much as the tune is popular with lots of political and historical significance in China, some people interpreted his performance as insulting the US.

Lang in response to the controversy denied that he intended to insult the United States. Thereafter he released a statement saying that he鈥� selected this song because it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but the beauty of its melody.鈥�   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.”

9. Numerous TV appearances

Lang Lang and singer Katharine McPhee perform at the National Memorial Day Concert in Washington By Chad J. McNeeley –

The numerous appearances to wh Lang have made include; 60 Minutes, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and The Today Show. He has also made appearances on CBS Early Show and Good Morning America. Not only that, but Lang also holds the title of the first Ambassador of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. During the 2008 Summer Olympic games, he was also featured on the German TV network ZDF and made several appearances on NBC’s The Today Show Summer Olympics broadcasts.

10. Outreach

Lang Lang appeared in Time magazine鈥檚 2009 list of the 100 Most influential People in the World. In 2008, the Recording Academy named him their Cultural Ambassador to China. By 2012, he was featured in Gramophone magazine鈥檚 Hall of Fame. More recently, Lang became chosen as an official worldwide ambassador for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Owing to his brilliant outreach, the Chinese government selected him as a vice-president of the All-China Youth Federation.