From the Archives: Lang Lang

0:02Speaker 1:This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Rock star is the wrong word by definition. But classical star doesn't quite get at Long Long's place in the pantheon. He's a serious pianist playing serious repertoire with a flair. Here it's a Schubert fantasy in front of a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. One's tempted to say he's one part Glenn Gould, one part Van Cliburn. But the truth is, he's long, long. He and his signature bouffant were the obvious choice to open the Beijing Olympics, watched by four billion people. And for President Obama to invite to play at the intimate White House dinner for the president of China.

1:08Speaker 1:Long Long takes an obvious joy in his art and his fame, but both are hard won. A musical prodigy, he was the son of two talented artists forced to abandon their dreams by the Cultural Revolution. Just a few years after he won a national competition at the age of five, his father abandoned everything else in his life.

1:33Speaker 2:To focus on his son's talent. They moved together to Beijing.

1:45Speaker 1:Lang Lang won so many contests that he was offered a spot by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His father moved with him to America, too. All that vicarious ambition took its toll on their bond, but.

2:00Speaker 3:Over the years, it returned.

2:02Speaker 4:We're very close.

2:04Speaker 1:Our conversation was taped in front of a live audience at WNYC's Greenspace.

2:11Speaker 4:We're really much better than when I was nine years old. Much better. It was not in the same level. We were really... It's getting closer somehow. Because we are not living together, so in a way, distance makes beauty, right? So that's how it exactly happened.

2:28Speaker 1:In his mind, he must have a kind of a mixed feeling, the euphoria of you having made it to the degree you've made it. And at the same time, he's not around you. I know that if I was your dad, I'm obsessed with my kids. And if I was like your dad and I was.

2:43Speaker 3:Instrumental and influential.

2:44Speaker 1:In helping you become what you became, then all of a sudden you were like, okay, dad, I got this and you're going to move out on your own. I'd be like, wait, no. If you were my son, I'd want to live with you forever. What does he do with himself now that you're not living together?

3:02Speaker 4:He's actually helping me a lot in China, back home. And then he's also teaching a lot. He likes to... helping the next generation of musicians.

3:14Speaker 3:He himself was a musician.

3:15Speaker 4:Yeah, he played the Erhu, the Chinese violin. So that was his... He.

3:20Speaker 3:Was in circus bands?

3:22Speaker 4:He was in an Air Force band, but before he was in a circus band. But the instrument itself is very beautiful. It's like one of the most charming instruments from Asia, and it's very tasteful. It has a really beautiful taste. And it's also an instrument that always makes you cry somehow. Yeah, so sometimes, I mean, my father made me cry with different reason.

3:51Speaker 3:You weren't crying because he broke out the, what is it called again?

3:53Speaker 5:Arhu.

3:55Speaker 4:Yeah, Arhu. More like that, yeah.

3:58Speaker 3:I'll get my Chinese pronunciation done eventually, but maybe by the time we're done.

4:02Speaker 1:But then you, your country, your native country is very driven by competitions and international competitions. They put a tremendous emphasis on that, correct?

4:12Speaker 4:Absolutely. The best way to make career were winning the competitions, which is the truth, especially during that time, because otherwise nobody will discover you, you know, in a way. So we have to go out for international competitions and to win prizes. So being number one kind of became a motto in my early career. And then, of course, after I landed here, I had this teacher, a great pianist, Gary Grafman, who was also quite different compared to the other academic professors because he is so into a real career rather than a short-term being a prize winner. So he discouraged me to do competitions. And I was like, wow, really?

5:04Speaker 3:Did he say why?

5:05Speaker 4:Yeah, he said that you're too crazy about being number one and you're not really focused on what you should be learning the repertoire. He said, do you want to become a great musician or you want to just win a prize? And I said, oh, is that not the same? I said, what's the difference? I said, if I don't win a prize, how am I going to become a great musician? He said, oh, okay, that's the wrong understanding you have. Especially his wife, Naomi. Naomi. Every time I go to library in Curtis, and then I start looking over the competition forms, like Van Cliburn, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and I take it out. And then I'm thinking to fill the form, right? And then I saw Naomi next to me. Hey, what are you doing, bad boy? Shouldn't you just working on your second piano concerto rather than, you know, feeling the form, trying to be a crazy number one somehow?

6:02Speaker 4:I was like, okay, let me go back to practice.

6:05Speaker 1:When you're young, you won your first competition when you were five, correct? Yeah.

6:09Speaker 4:I mean, that's what I was kind of like.

6:11Speaker 3:Shenyang. Yeah.

6:12Speaker 4:I was like kind of a professional competition player. person you know I'm very competitive if I see you let's let's do a competition now and if I see you yeah let's do it.

6:21Speaker 1:I'm not gonna bother you win in our company you're the winner we'll just skip to that but what fascinates me is the emotion and the feeling behind that kind of work when you're five years old if you can recall are you sitting at a piano and it's pressure and it's tense and And it's like you have to pass a test because it's a competition.

6:47Speaker 3:And there's a kind of a tight feeling you have.

6:50Speaker 1:Or are you enjoying yourself when you're five years old?

6:55Speaker 4:One thing good about competition is that it kind of pushes you to play better than you normally does because you try to play without wrong notes. You try to be 100% concentrated on what you do. But also, in the same time, If you are too serious about competition, you lose your soul in a way that you are afraid to do something wrong. And as you know, in art, sometimes when you really do something unique, you are actually not really on the page. You are actually doing something.

7:28Speaker 4:But that is a really great moment. So in a way, it's hard to say. It's hard to say. But I kind of enjoyed it because... Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win. It's encouraging me to do better. And actually, I learn more than just playing because I see others playing and I'm like, wow, they're good. I need to catch up. So this is a good vibe.

7:57Speaker 1:It's funny to see you, of all people, and you watch another five-year-old kid play, and you're like.

8:02Speaker 3:Damn, he's good. I couldn't do that when I was a kid. All right, let's have a competition. You and me right now. You're challenging everyone to a duel at the piano.

8:12Speaker 1:Now, what was missing in your childhood? What did you wish you had more of?

8:16Speaker 4:Video games, more sports, more free time. Free time, yeah, yeah. But now I'm at age of 36, I can have more free time if I want. So in the end, it's kind of OK.

8:33Speaker 3:You postponed it.

8:34Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Postponed it, yeah. But in a way, I wish that I may have a little bit more fun time to maybe less pressure, I would say.

8:45Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.

8:47Speaker 1:Did your dad say, I'm sorry that it was so tough and I'm sorry that it paid off in the end?

8:51Speaker 3:He never apologized.

8:52Speaker 4:No, I think the best action, he was like, oh yeah, let yourself handle your stuff and I'm not going to handle it anymore. I think that's the way that he.

9:01Speaker 3:He passed the management baton on to you.

9:03Speaker 4:Right, right, right. And now he's jealous of my mom. He's like, oh, the important concert, you are going and then you have a nice photo. So you see, he likes to have some nice photos.

9:12Speaker 3:So now your mother's doing a lot of traveling with you and not your father? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:14Speaker 1:So what's your mother's answer with all the travel? Just one martini is what her program is? Because that does come in handy for some people when they're flying.

9:20Speaker 4:I mean, she has this natural some kind of a, you know, she's just never get tired. She's incredible. I think I get some of my energy from her. Her eyes are always like this.

9:32Speaker 2:Yeah.

9:32Speaker 4:But before she start travel with me, she always sleep really early, like already 10, 11, very healthy, right? But then She now has traveled with me for a few years already. And now she's like never sleep before 3 or 2 at least. But she looks better than before. So I think it's the music therapy. She's everywhere. Every time I play something, she's like, yeah.

9:58Speaker 3:You've had a corrupting influence on your own mother.

10:01Speaker 4:I find that fascinating.

10:03Speaker 1:Is there a piece you play that is exceptionally challenging to you?

10:08Speaker 3:Was there one that even you.

10:10Speaker 4:Every time you play a new piece, whether it's a technically easy or difficult piece, which is always a new story to tell. And somehow it's not all about, you know, play the note anymore, you know, as a growing up pianist. So more about how to bring those music to life again and into, you know, a different interpretation. So therefore every pieces you have to focus and in a very different style, of course.

10:45Speaker 5:Yeah.

10:45Speaker 4:But, I wouldn't say this piece, I just, you know, kind of, I don't need to care much and it will come out in a great way. No way, you have to really focus and to concentrate. So that's why, like, in this new album, The Piano Book, it's the same thing. There are many pieces considered to be pretty simple, but once you start to re-look into those pieces and you're like, wow, those are master pieces. It's not simple, right? Maybe technically simple, but if you want to make real music out of it, you have to be focused and to play everything in your mind to make it work.

11:25Speaker 1:Well, there, of course, is my first slip up here, which is that you brought up your book before I did.

11:32Speaker 4:I'm sorry.

11:32Speaker 1:No, no, which is a bad hosting on my part. I should have mentioned that you have your new book out, the piano book and the CD album. which I have, and one thing I do, which is a silly preoccupation, is I go to an iTunes or any kind of a download service, and I look and see the length. So who plays the Mahler ninth, fourth movement the longest and the slowest, the most tortured fourth movement of the Mahler? And you do Claire de Lune. You squeeze the hell out of that. You really play the very... long, luxuriating Clair de Lune.

12:11Speaker 4:Why is that? And I think after getting a little older, I think it's going to be even longer. I'm joking. Don't worry. The other day, there was one critic said, from the Clair de Lune's The way I played, I think Lang Lang plays Goldberg with two hour and 30 minutes. And I think that's kind of a right thing to say. I'm now trying to figure out how long I'm going to play that piece. But I just want to enjoy the moment. And I wanted to make sure that I heard everything from that piece.

12:50Speaker 3:I have another question for you that, of course, we have a piano here, which is just a suggestion only. Don't feel any pressure. It's there in case you feel inclined to, you know, do this thing.

13:01Speaker 4:I like this way of, you know, inviting someone to play. There's one friend of mine. It was, you know, the birthday of mine. And so he invited me to his house and he said, you know, I know today's your birthday. Probably you will not play today. But I just want you to know, it's also my mother's birthday.

13:24Speaker 3:No pressure.

13:25Speaker 4:So I played happy birthday for her. Also, I heard with Pablo Casal, and there's a rich lady in London always inviting him for tea. And then But he always had something to do. He did not have time. And so finally, he came. And then the lady's like, where is your cello? And Kasao said, you did not invite my cello today.

13:51Speaker 1:BILLY JOELINGHAMER- Billy Joel did our show. And Billy said that everywhere he goes, obviously a considerable number of people have a piano in their home and he said everywhere he goes they're like Billy do you mind just one quick tune and everywhere he goes it's like Christmas carols at the Christmas party do you find the same thing as true are people constantly saying.

14:19Speaker 4:But they do in a different way now they say what am I traveling oh so do you need a place to practice oh I'll put a piano in my home if you'll practice. Yeah, you can come to my home anytime, 24 hours. I don't have neighbors. It's okay. It's myself. I'm like, okay, I got it.

14:39Speaker 3:I got it. Now, before we get to some other subjects, I've got a lot of questions here.

14:44Speaker 6:Would you regale us with some little piece?

14:48Speaker 4:Yeah, I will play one of the piece from the recording. I don't know which one, but I start.

14:54Speaker 3:Wait, yeah. It'll come to you.

15:03Speaker 5:Piano plays softly.

15:33Speaker 4:Thank you.

16:05Speaker 6:Thank you. Thank you.

17:31Speaker 3:Thank you.

17:32Speaker 4:Thank you. This is the vaults of Emily from the movie Emily. It's a really nice movie.

17:44Speaker 3:Describe for us, how did the piano book come about? Whose idea was this?

17:48Speaker 4:I always wanted to do an album like this because when I was a kid, I barely found the professional musician recording pieces like For Elise or Churney Etudes or Clementi Sonatina or Mozart Sonatina or some of the pieces which you consider to be the beginner's pieces. But those are the pieces I loved the most when I was a kid, and those are my best friends. Sometimes it's not best friends. Sometimes after a lot of practice, they become my worst friends. Sometimes I want to kill them.

18:28Speaker 4:But in the end of the day, those are the bread and butter made pianist to grow. So therefore, I wanted to record something which can be appreciated by every person who loves piano. So that's why we called the album The Piano Album.

18:48Speaker 3:And this is for Deutsche.

18:50Speaker 4:Yeah, for Deutsche Gramm.

18:51Speaker 3:And it's already in release because I have it on my phone. I downloaded it on my phone.

18:55Speaker 4:Thank you.

18:55Speaker 3:Well, it was worth it, believe me.

18:58Speaker 5:Thanks.

18:58Speaker 4:I hope it brings some nice feelings. And don't always count the minute, please.

19:03Speaker 3:Yeah.

19:07Speaker 4:Later it's like, one second, five seconds.

19:12Speaker 1:Now, when you're leaving very shortly, in the next few days, to go on a tour, and you're going to have a. You're going to Rome, and then you're going on to Korea, South Pacific, so forth. Now, when you go on these trips, the first thing that comes to mind is that you grew up in communist China. And, of course, Americans have their own unreliable images of China and what goes on in China. I don't think they're quite sure. But for me, what I'm curious about is how did the Cultural Revolution in China impact your parents?

19:56Speaker 3:Wasn't there some impact on your mom?

19:59Speaker 4:I think the Cultural Revolution, I mean, of course, this is from their generation. I wasn't there. But it certainly gave them incredible... kind of i mean openness to to the next generation they want their kid you know to to uh to be a citizen of the world uh and they you know in a way that because they kind of missed 10 years of time uh to not connect it to to the world um and so so in a way that that's why my generation of uh uh, Chinese kids, um, I mean, not kids anymore. Um, um, we are very, uh, you know, trying to, you know, learn piano and to, to get connected to the world.

20:45Speaker 4:And of course being Chinese, but also, uh, a world citizen, um, something like that. Our mission is bridging, uh, the, uh, the culture together.

20:55Speaker 5:Yeah.

20:56Speaker 3:Um, this is your home now in New York.

20:58Speaker 5:Yeah.

20:58Speaker 3:You call New York home.

20:59Speaker 5:Yeah.

20:59Speaker 4:I moved to New York in 2007. Uh, after, um, 10 years in Philadelphia since 97. To go to Curtis. Yeah, I was studying there. And then I was waiting to earn more money to afford the apartment here. How's that going? Yeah, it worked since 2007. So that's why I moved, yeah. And when I came to America in 96, I was just 14. And I thought New York is such a city with... the whole world behind so i always wanted to to come here to uh you know to be part of this.

21:41Speaker 1:Why not other cities um i mean because the cultural scene here is obviously very real new york is a cultural capital like other great cities but but maybe not as much as other cities like there was no thought of europeans to live in.

21:55Speaker 4:Paris i mean i i actually do have a A new home in Paris. I fully expected you to say that. You've sold a few records, I see. So it would be like Beijing, New York, and Paris. That sounds like.

22:09Speaker 3:The perfect triangle. New York, Beijing, Paris.

22:14Speaker 1:So when you travel the world, are there halls that you play in? Are there ensembles that you play with? that you really get excited about? What are among your favorite spaces to perform at? I know that the acoustics are very much of an issue because being on the board of the Philharmonic, they're going to be dynamiting David Geffen Hall very shortly, in the next year or two, to redo all of Geffen Hall. What's a space that when you perform, you just love the sound of that space?

22:42Speaker 4:There are many beautiful halls in the world. Of course, you have Carnegie Hall here. You have Boston Symphony Hall. It's a really amazing sound. And you have the Musikverein concert house in Vienna. And one of the very beautiful look, like this beautiful look, is the Royal Albert Hall in London. Maybe the sound is not great, but it looks great. I mean, sometimes that comes too, you know, for DVD recording, you know, live streaming.

23:13Speaker 3:It's a nice set.

23:14Speaker 4:Oh, nice place, yeah. But it's really interesting because for pianists, we normally play on the side, right? So we never really look into audience somehow. I mean, if you want, you do like this, right? But in the Royal Albert Hall, it's a run, right? So everywhere is audience. So first time I felt really nervous when I start playing Mozart. You know, so delicate. And then I see someone's waving at me. I was like, oh, this is only downside of playing the roundhouse. And I'm thinking about cellist every day, you know, playing. Wow, that's tough.

23:57Speaker 3:I'm with you at Manhattan School of Music. I told your mother this story.

23:59Speaker 1:I said, we're in Central Park and you're playing Rhapsody in Blue. And you're there with the Philharmonic with Alan. It's the concert in the park. And that's obviously where the reverse, you'd be facing the other way. And you're playing the piano, and you get to the most tender and the most beautiful, the most gorgeous moment in that soft piano part of Rhapsody in Blue. And you get to the end of the keyboard, and you took this nanosecond to look at the audience. Of course, I'm projecting here.

24:26Speaker 1:And you get to the end of the piano, and you look at the audience, and you're like, you really love me, don't you? You're really crazy about me when I do this. When I do this to this piano, you go crazy.

24:36Speaker 3:Don't you? I know you do. And you went, ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-ba. And you're like... It's me here with you. And I said that to your mother, and your mother goes, Exactly! That's him! That's what he does!

25:01Speaker 1:The great pianist Long Long. He took his first lesson when he was just three years old. You know who else got his start at three?

25:13Speaker 3:Itzhak Perlman, playing on a toy violin in his bedroom.

25:18Speaker 5:I loved the sound of the violin. I heard it on the radio, and I said, that's what I want to do. Simple. That's what I want to do. And there was no explanation. Everybody... has a different thing that grabs their imagination. And the violin sound was that, and I think it was Heifetz, so he was pretty good for grabbing the imagination, you know?

25:41Speaker 1:My full interview with Itzhak Perlman can be found at heresthething.org. Long, long on music that moves him, coming up.

25:51Speaker 5:¶ ¶ © transcript Emily Beynon.

26:39Speaker 1:I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Long Long had barely hit puberty when he and his father landed in Philadelphia from Shenyang. The Curtis Institute of Music awarded Long Long a full scholarship, But teenagers still need a high school education.

26:57Speaker 4:I still remember my first day in Philadelphia in high school. And I went into the class and they said, so introduce yourself. And I said, yeah, I'm playing piano. I come here to study classical music. And everybody look at me like they're seeing an alien.

27:15Speaker 5:What?

27:15Speaker 4:I said, Mozart, do you know Mozart?

27:18Speaker 3:I think I heard about that guy.

27:20Speaker 4:Yeah, he's dead for many years, right? I'm like, wow, this is something.

27:25Speaker 3:I've been in a bubble.

27:26Speaker 4:Oh, by the way, I also record Chopstick. You know, I did not know that piece in China. I did not know Chopstick. I know Chopstick, you know. But so they, you know, so they asked me.

27:38Speaker 1:If I made that joke, my career would be over right now.

27:43Speaker 4:So one day I invited them backstage of Philadelphia Orchestra. There's a piano. They were in the rehearsal for two minutes, and they cannot stand anymore. They all came out because they just couldn't listen to symphony. And they said, Lang Lang, Lang Lang, there's a piano there. Can you play chapstick? And I was, yeah, so I don't really know. But they showed me, and I started. But from that moment on, we became really good friends. Also, you know, this culture clash is kind of, you know, we went through that point.

28:15Speaker 4:And then I realized one day I should help my friend and classmate to have a bit of music inspirations in the school. So therefore, 10 years ago, we founded the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in New York. And now we have almost 60 schools. And I also want to thank. Thank you. But also, I want to have this opportunity to thank Alec. From the first time when we played concert, Alec was the host already. And then in every fundraising time, he's always there. And he's also a donor.

28:56Speaker 3:It's hard to say no to you.

28:58Speaker 4:Yeah.

28:59Speaker 3:Thank you.

28:59Speaker 4:No, we really appreciate your help.

29:01Speaker 3:And so the foundation's been in existence for how long now?

29:04Speaker 6:10 years.

29:05Speaker 4:Yeah.

29:06Speaker 3:And 60 schools in the US or around the world as well? US. In the US.

29:10Speaker 2:Yeah.

29:11Speaker 1:How would you say, I mean, to the extent that this is possible, because I'm always quick to undervalue or under-emphasize the American experience, if you will, but you are a prodigy, obviously, and it's knocking them dead at the piano since you're five years old.

29:27Speaker 3:How much would you say the United States and.

29:30Speaker 1:Your experience of living in the United States helped to crystallize some of your talent and some of your ability?

29:35Speaker 4:I was very lucky. I had this best teacher in the world, Gary Grafman.

29:40Speaker 3:Curtis.

29:40Speaker 4:Yeah, Curtis. He basically became a lifetime mentor to me. And so, because this is quite important, there are many schools, many different teachers. You need to find someone who's having great knowledge, but also fits your style. And in a way, Gary is absolutely the right one because he taught me so much about different culture. Learning piano, this is not just playing the note. You have to learn the culture and you have to learn the history. You need to learn their culture roots, folk music. And somehow you're learning the culture of the world and you really need to dig into it. And then I think in the U.S., it's a really, you have so many different neighborhood. You know, if you want to find more European neighborhood like German town, you want the French quarter, or, you know, so you always find people from different culture and they can share, you know, their culture with you. And I still remember the first few years, it was very difficult for me to understand the culture. And then Gary found a wonderful teacher who taught me Shakespeare. Then after reading a few of the books, then I started to understand the Western

31:04Speaker 4:classic music, the relationship between the music to the art theme, to the novels. You have to have the surroundings. And then, of course, not only U.S. is important. You also need to go to Europe. because this is home of some of the greatest composers, like going to Moscow or St. Petersburg, going to Vienna, going to Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, or Madrid, to get into the European culture.

31:36Speaker 3:Now, what does a conductor have to offer you these days, at your level?

31:42Speaker 4:When I was a teenager, I had many great... life experience with, you know, conductors like Savalish, Lauren Mazzell, and they're like my grandfather, you know, they're like a totally different generation and from a totally different time. And so they told me how to understand Beethoven, how to understand Brahms, how to understand, you know, in a way that is hard to explain in the schools, but this is like face-to-face. They show you the feelings. You know, like they basically, even though sometimes they don't sing really well, they can really show what they want. And those are kind of life experiences. And this is something that I'm so treasuring because some of those masters already passed away. And I still have a beautiful memories of my first time meeting Sabale or Mazel. and this is just a tremendous experience for me.

32:42Speaker 3:Name, if you can, a couple of conductors who you really love working with.

32:46Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. Gustavo Dudamel, he's my great buddy. I love him. We just played the day before yesterday in L.A.

32:55Speaker 3:Where did you play?

32:57Speaker 4:Beethoven No. 2, yeah. And also I love the new conductor of Berlin Philharmonic, Kirill Perchenko, which is going to be, starting with Burning Field this season. And of course, I love Zubin Mehta. He showed me all the tricks, what Horowitz did with him, the Rachmaninoff third concerto. And also, when I played Chopin number one, he said, this song is not good enough. I said, so what do you think? He said, yeah, I played with Arthur Rubinstein. He did not play like this. I'm like, oh, show me. Maestro, show me. And he said, I don't know how to do that. But he did like this.

33:37Speaker 3:Are you still learning? Absolutely.

33:43Speaker 4:So here's the thing. Sometimes you go to a master class and you learn a lot of things in that class. And then afterward, it helps you a little bit for a few more weeks. But if someone's really good real master you will hear a master class and that class will carry at least another 10 years and every time you think about you know what he or she told you on that that class is not just about how to make music but it's it's a really the way how are you going to think about music and how you connect with your personality you know to the composers and how are you bridging your imagination into the music and how are you going to develop your next 10 years so they basically make you think much more than who you are few musicians can really do that and it really brings you to think much deeper and to think about in a very different concept and I still remember working with Maestro Nicholas Hanenkor on Mozart. And of course I played many times Mozart concertos, but that lesson I played, he showed me something that I never seen Mozart can be described or interpreted in that way. And that changed the whole time. You basically think, oh my God,

35:24Speaker 4:what I did was wrong, you know, and I'm gonna relearn everything. So, you know, some musicians have that power to really restart your thinking of everything.

35:36Speaker 1:Are you gonna tell us what he said about Mozart? These people love classical, or is that a secret, is that an industry secret? Nothing, I mean, I think I play a little bit of... Now would be the perfect time for that.

35:48Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a little bit hard to describe because it's a quite.

35:51Speaker 3:You don't need to describe it, you can just do it.

35:54Speaker 4:I play two variations from the Twinkle Twinkle Variation.

35:58Speaker 5:Okay?

36:30Speaker 4:Piano plays softly.

38:13Speaker 1:Was there a moment in your life, I mean, I know I ask these sappy questions, but was there a moment in your life when you thought, I really am pretty good at this? Like, when did you realize you were becoming the person that you became?

38:26Speaker 4:It happened a few times. Yeah, because, like, you know, it happens, and then you think you're not good enough. You know, it's kind of like that. So when I was nine, I thought I really don't have talent, and I thought I'm going to give up. And then somehow when I.

38:44Speaker 5:Why? I mean.

38:46Speaker 1:What was going on in your life that happened when you were.

38:49Speaker 4:I had a professor who did not like me, and then she fired me. And I thought, I'm so bad. I got fired even. Can you imagine this really... And she told me that you will never become a pianist, so.

39:06Speaker 5:Yeah, so.

39:06Speaker 3:So now you call her before every concert.

39:08Speaker 4:Yeah. No, I got so scared because every time when I'm making an audition in the conservatory, she's sitting first row because she's the professor. So I had so many nightmares because of you know her her encouragement but anyway so but but then I and then the first time I thought I'm pretty good is that I when I won the international competition at age of 12 in Germany and I thought wow I actually can play some good sound yeah and then I And then I had a horrible time at school again. Like, I did not do well.

39:49Speaker 4:And I'm like, okay, I'm not good enough. And then when I came to America, in the beginning, I was so confident the first month. I'm like, wow, I'm pretty good. And then, you know, there are many great students at Curtis. They play so well. And I'm like, I'm not good enough. And then I have no concerts, you know, for like, three years almost, um, because nobody have the confidence to take a 15 year old boy, you know, to play Beethoven, uh, concertos or, or Tchaikovsky. It's kind of like too young, you know? So I still remember my early days audition, you know, from Philadelphia taking the, uh, the, the Greyhound bus, um, it was like $ 12, something like, yeah.

40:35Speaker 5:Yeah.

40:35Speaker 4:And then, uh, came to, uh, uh, Came to Times Square and then running into auditions. And then afterward, the conductor's like, yeah. So there was an audition for Milwaukee Symphony. Yeah, it's good. Good orchestra. And the conductor look at me. Oh, this is from some European country. And you played pretty good. But how old are you? And I'm 15. Oh, maybe let's wait another 10 years. So it did not go so well in the beginning.

41:08Speaker 1:Now, there's a story that I read about you going to Ettlingen.

41:14Speaker 4:That's the German one when I was 12.

41:17Speaker 3:Right, and you go to a competition, correct?

41:19Speaker 4:First international competition for me, yeah.

41:22Speaker 3:And when you go there, you went to a church.

41:24Speaker 5:Yeah.

41:25Speaker 3:And I read where you prayed to Jesus when you were in this church.

41:28Speaker 1:And I'm just wondering, and I want to phrase this question the right way, which is, do you have, without enumerating them or discussing them if you don't want to, specific religious beliefs, or like many people that I've met in the classical repertoire, is music itself your religion now?

41:44Speaker 4:I think certainly music is our religion, but I do believe there's some incredible power beyond us. You are getting inspired from somewhere. And this is not just about our wonderful friendship, but there's someone that's helping you. That's for sure. And also from the different part of my life, you know, there's a lot of time I thought I'm not going to make it, but somehow I made it.

42:09Speaker 1:The strength came to you. Do you listen to any classical music?

42:13Speaker 4:For me, when I'm not performing, I like to listen to jazz. Because somehow, you know, the jazz musicians are really, really incredible. They can just, you know, give anything and they make it into a beautiful work. Especially, you know, people that I admire, like, herbie hancock and chi korea you know those my great friend and also learn so much from them and then the other aspect is to to listen to new music you know like just fresh made whether it's on top radio or like edm you know.

42:47Speaker 6:Just hear movies tv and it's also great um and uh and also um I think listening to Mahler symphony or Brahms symphonies are always, you know, always very inspiring.

43:00Speaker 4:You always find something new. And somehow, when I was a kid, I did not really reflect those things into my life. You know, you kind of listen to it, you know it's beautiful. But now, somehow, when I'm, especially, you know, normally when you play with orchestra, the second half is the orchestra, right? So I always sit in, and then when I listen to Mahler or Brahms, somehow it's reflected in your life. the changes of the harmonies, somehow it's like, it's so related to us. You sort of thinking, oh, this is one point of my career.

43:32Speaker 4:What happened is like, you know, the turning of the harmonies.

43:35Speaker 1:What is it about this music that it touches people that way?

43:40Speaker 3:What is your feeling?

43:41Speaker 4:Yeah, because in classical music, especially in the symphonic pieces, there's so many different layers, different layers. And those layers are, you know, representing our emotions, our memories and and our kind of different aspect of culture and people like Mahler he's the the reason I think we love his music so much is that because he's he has such a mix of culture in his music and somehow you know every one of us is piece of that and and also you know That's what classical music is for. It's very long pieces, very long symphonies. And, you know, it's very different if you see a film at five minutes and it finishes. If it's a TV soap, 20 minutes.

44:34Speaker 4:Or it's a movie for two hours. It gets you into a different stage of your heart, of your mind as well. And I think symphonies are like opera. You know, they can really get in to very deep layers of your heart and of your senses. And another thing is that once you're in the concert hall listening to those incredible work is that everything else get blocked. Everything else. So that's why your emotion becomes so pure, so genuine. You become who you are. And so that's why, you know, we get tears in our eyes because we're so focused and we just let music take us to when we start our life, the first day of memory. And I think that's it.

45:26Speaker 1:I was going to ask this question, but I'll just say this now, and that is that I was going to say you grew up your whole childhood in China and then you've lived here and abroad for years. And I was going to ask you, what have you learned that the Chinese people and the American people have in common And I guess what I'm realizing is everywhere you go, what people have in common is this language of music and their love of music.

45:48Speaker 4:Like, for example, there are a lot of great orchestras coming to visit China. And most of those Chinese kids probably never heard of those countries before in their life. But when they start playing their music, we all felt that we know each other. And this is the power. This is really the power.

46:08Speaker 1:Please join me in thanking our very special guest, Long Long.

46:10Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you.

46:43Speaker 1:Long Long, his most recent album of pieces normally reserved for young learners.

46:49Speaker 3:Is called Piano Book.

46:52Speaker 1:The accompanying hardcover has all the sheet music plus his notes on why each piece meant so.

46:58Speaker 3:Much to him growing up. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's The Thing is brought to you by I Heart Radio.

47:06Speaker 6:I Heart Radio.

47:44Speaker 5:Thank you.