Lang Lang is one of the world’s greatest concert pianist. His first contacted with Western music was when he was just two years old. He watched a carton in which a cat played a famous piece by Franz Liszt. From this experience, he decided he wanted to learn to play the piano. When he was three and a half years old, he started piano lessons.
Two years later, he won the first place in a piano competition. This early success gave his father high hopes that Lang Lang would become a great pianist.
When Lang Lang was nine years old, his father quit his job and took him to Beijing. They left everything behind, including his mother who had to work. Lang Lang didn’t want to leave her behind, but his father insisted. His father wanted him to study at the famous central conservatory of music. When they moved to Beijing, they rented a flat in a poor area of the city. During this time, Lang Lang practiced several hours a day. He started practicing at five o’clock, which upset his neighbors. They would often pound on his door and ask him to stop practicing. They were so angry, that he often feared that they would beat him up.
Lang Lang usually had his piano lesson once a week to prepare for the conservatory. Nearly 2000 students were applying for just 12 places at the conservatory. His lessons were expensive and very difficult, especially because of his piano teacher. His music teacher didn’t like Lang Lang. he called his teacher professor Angry because she always gave him a hard time.
One afternoon his teacher told him he had no talent and told him to go home. Upon hearing the news, his father screamed and seemed to lose his mind. His father told him that everything was destroyed and there was no reason to live. He orderd Lang Lang to jump from the eleven floor balcony. After this, Lang Lang almost went crazy. He didn’t want to play the piano any more. For several months, he neither played the piano, nor spoke to his father. Then his friends encouraged him to play a piece for them and he realized his great love of the piano. For the next nineteen months, he practiced hard and his father encouraged him.
Finally, when he was ten, he was accepted into the conservatory with a full scholarship. In 1995, when was thirteen years old, he played music by Chopin in the Beijing concert hall. In that same year, he won first place in an international competition for young musicians in Japan. When he was fifteen, he moved to the United States and began to study with the famous pianist at the courtesy institute. Since then his career has grown and he has become a major star. One of the American music critics called him the biggest
In 2010, Lang Lang signed a recording contract for several million dollars.
In 2011, he performed at the white house for president Obama of United States and Hu Jintao of China. With all of his success and fame, Lang Lang tries to encourage others. He uses his fame to spread the popularity of classical music and encourage young musicians. And in the end, Lang Lang and his father had rebuilt their relationship. In his autobiography, Mr. Lang dedicated this book to his mother and father.