Journey of a Thousand Miles
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- €7.49
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- €7.49
Publisher Description
Journey of a Thousand Miles tells the remarkable story of a boy who sacrificed almost everything – family, financial security, childhood and his reputation in China’s insular classical music world – to fulfil his promise as a classical pianist.
Lang Lang was born in Shenyang in north-eastern China just after the end of the Cultural Revolution. He began piano lessons at three years old and by age ten had been awarded a place at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In order to continue his studies he moved thousands of miles from home, living with his exacting father in a cramped, shared apartment, while his mother stayed at home to earn the money to pay his fees.
At fifteen he moved to the United States to take up a scholarship at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia; by nineteen he was selling out Carnegie Hall. His tutor and mentor Daniel Barenboim was perhaps the first to describe him as ‘extraordinarily talented’; today his assessment is shared by millions.
Now in adulthood, Lang Lang tours relentlessly, delighting sell-out audiences with his trademark flamboyance and showmanship. Journey of a Thousand Miles is a tale of heartbreak, drama and ultimately triumph. His inspiring story demonstrates the courage and self-sacrifice required to achieve artistic greatness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
David Ritz, cowriter to the stars, helps pen two very different music autobiographies.Journey of a Thousand Miles: My StoryLang Lang with David Ritz. Spiegel & Grau, (256p) By his own account, internationally renowned classical pianist Lang Lang has literally traveled the world in an attempt to find himself and to share his music. Only 25, this young piano prodigy became mesmerized by classical music when he heard, before he was two, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 as the score for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. By the age of five, he won first place in the Shenyang Piano Competition, and his father soon pressed him to become the number one pianist in the world. Through a series of loosely connected anecdotes, Lang Lang retells the story of his father's fierce determination to have Lang Lang win at all costs and his father's willingness to sacrifice his family and his job for his son's success. Following accolades in China and Europe, Lang and his father move to Philadelphia, where Lang enrolls in the prestigious Curtis School of Music at age 14. By 17, Lang substituted for Andr Watts at the Ravinia Festival in suburban Chicago and launched his career. Lang's successes are admirable, and his memoir reveals a young man still searching for the meaning of life and music.
