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A Prodigy's (天才)
Early Years
As a boy growing up in Shenyang, China, I practiced the piano six
hours a day. I loved the instrument. My mother, Xiu-lan Zhou, taught
me to read notes, and my father, Guo-ren Lang, concertmaster of a
local folk orchestra, showed me how to control the keys. At first I
played on clunky Chinese keyboards -- cheap, but the best we could
afford. Later my parents bought me a Swedish piano, but I broke half
the strings on it playing Tchaikovsky. That's when my parents and my
teacher decided I was too much for such an instrument -- and for our
hometown. To be a serious musician, I would have to move to Beijing,
one of our cultural capitals. I was just eight years old.
My father, who played the erhu, a two-stringed instrument,
knew that life wouldn't be easy. Millions of pianists in China were
vying for fame. You need fortune, my father said. If you don't work,
no fortune comes. But music is still music, he added, and it exists
to make us happy.
To relocate to Beijing with me, he made a great sacrifice. He quit
his concertmaster's job, which he loved, and my mother stayed behind
in Shenyang to keep working at her job at the science institute to
support us. They both warned me, "Being a pianist is hard. Can you
live without your mother?" I said, "I want my mother!" But I knew I
needed to be in Beijing. In America, people often move and start
over. But not in China, not in those days.
Suddenly my father and I
were newcomers -- outsiders. To the others around us, we spoke with
funny northern accents. The only apartment we could find for the
money we had was in an unheated building, with five families sharing
one bathroom. My father cooked, cleaned and looked after me. He
became a housewife, basically.
We lived far from my school, and since the bus was too expensive, my
father would "drive" me on his bicycle every day. It was an
hour-and-a-half trip each way, and I was a heavy boy, much heavier
than I am as an adult. He did this in winter too. Imagine! During
the coldest nights, while I practiced piano, my father would lie in
my bed so it would be warm when I was tired.
I was miserable, but not from the poverty or pressure. My new
teacher in Beijing didn't like me. "You have no talent," she often
told me. "You will never be a pianist." And one day, she "fired" me.
I was just nine years old. I was devastated. I didn't want to be a
pianist anymore, I decided. I wanted to go home to my mother. For
the next two weeks I didn't touch the piano. Wisely, my father
didn't push. He just waited.
Sure enough, the day came at school when my teacher asked me to play
some holiday songs. I didn't want to, but as I placed my fingers on
the piano's keys, I realized I could show other people that I had
talent after all.
That day I told my father what he'd been waiting to hear -- that I
wanted to study with a new teacher. From that point on, everything
turned around.
When Fortune Spots You
I started winning competitions. We still had very little money -- my
father had to borrow $5,000 to pay for a trip to the International
Young Pianists Competition in Ettlingen, Germany, in 1994, when I
was 12. I realized later how much pressure he was under as I watched
footage of the contest. Tears streamed down his face when it was
announced that I'd won -- earning enough money to pay back our loan.
It was soon clear I couldn't stay in China forever. To become a
world-class musician, I had to play on the world's big stages. So in
1997, my father and I moved again, this time to Philadelphia, so I
could attend The Curtis Institute of Music. Finally our money
worries were easing. The school paid for an apartment and even lent
me a Steinway. At night, I would sneak into the living room just to
touch the keys.
Now that I was in America, I wanted to become famous, but my new
teachers reminded me that I had a lot to learn. I spent two years
practicing, and by 1999 I had worked hard enough for fortune to take
over. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra heard me play and liked me, but
orchestra schedules were set far in advance. I thought I might join
them in a few years.
The next morning, I got a call. The great pianist Andre Watts, who
was to play the "Gala Benefit Evening" at Chicago's Ravinia
Festival, had become ill. I was asked to substitute. That
performance was, for me, the moment. After violinist Isaac Stern
introduced me, I played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. My
father's mouth hung open throughout the entire song.
Afterward, people celebrated -- maybe they were a bit drunk -- and
asked me to play Bach's Goldberg Variations. So I played until 3:30
a.m. I felt something happening. Sure enough, gigs started pouring
in. Lincoln Center. Carnegie Hall. Still, my father kept telling me,
"You'd better practice!" But living in America with me was beginning
to relax him. In Beijing I'd been fat -- he made sure I ate -- and
he'd been skinny. Now I was getting thin. He wasn't.
I wanted to do something special for him for all he had done for me.
So when I made my Carnegie Hall solo recital debut in 2003 at age
21, I included Chinese music. I wanted to revive our family's
Shenyang tradition of playing together.
My father and I had often practiced a piece called "Horses," a fun
version for piano and erhu. That night in Carnegie Hall,
after I played Chopin and Liszt, I brought Dad out on the stage, and
we played our duet. People went crazy -- they loved it. My father
couldn't sleep for days. He was too happy to sleep.
There have been lots of concerts in Carnegie Hall, but for me
playing there was especially sweet when I remember the cold days in
Beijing. Together, my father and I worked to reach the lucky place
where fortune spots you, and lets you shine.
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