Source: CCTV.com
07-30-2008 17:39
Profile of Lang Lang
Lang Lang, the Chinese pianist, has won numerous music awards. He has been granted a title as the International Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
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Date/Place of birth
June 14, 1982, Liaoning, China.
Early achievement
1993 Won the Xing Hai Cup Piano Competition in Beijing.
1994 Being awarded the top prize of outstanding artistic performance at the Fourth International Young Pianists Competition in Germany.
1995 Played the Op. 10 and Op. 25 Chopin Etudes at Beijing Concert Hall.
Being top ranked at 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.
1996 Being identified as the soloist at the China National Symphony's inaugural concert.
1997 Began piano studies with Gary Graffman and Dick Doran in the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.
Career Experiences
Lang Lang's breakthrough in the West came in 1999 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).
By the year of 2007, Lang Lang has performed with most of the major orchestras of the world.
Many criticized Lang as "loved by some, reviled by others", though, the Chicago Tribune's music critic called him "the biggest, most exciting young keyboard talent I have encountered in many-year attending piano recitals".
Lang has been favorably compared with Horowitz.
In 2001 Lang made his sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with Yuri Temirkanov, and made an acclaimed BBC Proms debut, thus prompting a music critic of the British newspaper. The Times wrote, "Lang Lang took a sold-out Royal Albert Hall by storm..."
In 2003, Lang returned to the BBC Proms for the First Night concert with Leonard Slatkin.
After Lang's recent recital debut in Berlin Philharmonic, the Berliner Zeitung wrote, "Lang Lang is a superb musical performer whose artistic touch is always in service of the music".
In 2007 Lang Lang played piano on Music of the Spheres, the first fully classical work by British musician Mike Oldfield, which is scored for classical guitar, piano and orchestra.
In July, 2007, being commissioned by Prince Charles in memory of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth,
Lang Lang worked as the soloist in the premiere of Nigel Hess's Piano Concerto in Norfolk.
Lang performed Rhapsody No.2 in C sharp minor at the Royal Variety Performance in December 2007.
In February, 2008, Lang Lang performed with Herbie Hancock to commemorate George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
In March 2008 Mike Oldfield released Lang's first classical album.
Main Awards
Lang once attended the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra. The performance was broadcast by Russian National Television.
2004, Lang's performance with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, which was broadcast worldwide, achieved an attendance of 23,000 people.
In the summer of 2002, Lang became the first recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival.
Editor:Zhang Yue
