Renowned Pianist Tells His Story
By Sally Lodge, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 7/17/2008
Chinese prodigy Lang Lang began playing the piano at the age of three. Two years later, he won his first musical competition and gave his debut public recital. Now 26, Lang Lang has performed with many major symphony orchestras around the world, playing at such venues as the White House, Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and London’s Royal Albert Hall. To relay his remarkable life story, the pianist teamed up with Michael French to pen Lang Lang: Playing with Flying Keys, out this month from Delacorte. Doubleday’s Spiegel & Grau imprint is simultaneously releasing an adult version, Lang Lang: Journey of a Thousand Miles, which Lang Lang wrote with David Ritz.
The young virtuoso, whose recordings repeatedly land atop classical music charts, hopes the book will help him achieve what he describes as his professional ambition: “to make classical music known to all young children around the world—to make classical music cool.” This week, Lang Lang is promoting his books with signings and performances in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Through his autobiography, he wants to provide children insight into his experiences and his deep love of music. “The purpose in writing this book is to get more connected to children and also for them to understand the process of growing as a musician,” he says. “I believe it will inspire the young generation to have the passion to learn music.”
In addition to chronicling his career highlights, which include performing at age 17 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and studying under maestro conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, Lang Lang emphasizes the pressure to succeed he felt as a boy. At age nine he left his native Shenyang to study piano in Beijing, while his mother remained behind to support the family.
Lang Lang’s father, who accompanied him to Beijing and subsequently to Philadelphia where he attended the Curtis Institute of Music, insisted his son practice piano constantly so that he could become the top pianist in the world. Asked whether that pressure helped him achieve such a high level of success, Lang Lang answers, “Yes and no, because pressure is good encouragement but still it’s very, very tough. If the pressure turns too intense it is not good. It should have a limit.”
The children’s and adult autobiographies of Lang Lang came about after a casual conversation between Beverly Horowitz, v-p and publisher of Bantam Delacorte Dell Books for Young Readers and Random House Children’s Books, and Cindy Spiegel, senior v-p and publisher of Spiegel & Grau, in which they realized their mutual enjoyment of the pianist’s work. “We both agreed that we’d love to do books about Lang Lang,” Horowitz recalls, “and luckily, it turned out Cindy knew his manager. So we each signed up a book simultaneously.”
Both editions are largely based on extensive interviews with Lang Lang, conducted by Ritz and the books’ respective editors. French restructured the transcripts and added a chronology of the pianist’s life for Playing with Flying Keys’s middle-grade audience in order to, according to Horowitz, “put Lang Lang’s life in a context for young readers as he lived it, and to let them know what it was like to be a young person growing up in China.” The Delacorte edition also includes an introduction by Barenboim, a glossary of Western composers annotated by the pianist, and photos from Lang Lang’s personal collection.
While working on their respective editions, Horowitz and Spiegel met up with the pianist in Lyon, where they attended two of his concerts. “That gave us another interesting view of Lang Lang, since his concerts were booked solid and there were lots of young people there,” Horowitz says. “He is a rock star in Europe as well as in the U.S. and China, and he even takes the time to give master classes to young pianists. He is very committed to igniting in young people a passion for classical music, and also to letting Western youngsters know how life is different in China.”
This summer’s Olympics in Beijing may also act as such a cross-cultural bridge; the timing of the autobiography’s release is not coincidental. “The world opens up to whatever country sponsors the Olympics and wants to know more about its culture,” observes Horowitz. “The recent earthquakes connected the rest of the world to China emotionally. After watching the Olympics, I think kids will be interested in learning more about China. It is clearly an economic and cultural powerhouse that is not going away.”
Lang Lang, who will be one of 10 pianists—six Western and four Chinese—performing with the Beijing National Symphony Orchestra in the Olympic Centenary Piano Extravaganza of China on August 19, sees the Beijing Olympics as a positive, as well. “I think this is tremendous for China and great for the world, because a country that has a lot of years of history is hosting this historic event,” he says. “I really believe China will host a very friendly Olympic games.”
Lang Lang: Playing with Flying Keys by Lang Lang with Michael French. Delacorte, $16.99 978-0-385-73578-0 ages 9-up
