Piano star Lang Lang on Atlanta, his passion for music education and the tune that consoles him

Caption

Lang Lang takes the stage at Atlanta Symphony Hall on Sept. 19, 2025, where he performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Credit: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Rand Lines

Pianist Lang Lang spreads his love for classical music wherever he travels, and his enthusiasm has won a global following. On his recent visit to Atlanta, he performed Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Sept. 19.

Before the concert, he sat down with GPB’s Sarah Zaslaw to chat about everything from his move from China as a teen and his evolving idea of success to his educational program for schools, his own kiddo’s musical taste, and what piece he finds most consoling. Lang Lang’s Piano Book 2 is out Oct. 17.

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah Zaslaw: It's my honor to sit down today with pianist Lang Lang — really, superstar pianist Lang Lang. Welcome to Atlanta and welcome to GPB.

Lang Lang: Thank you. Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Zaslaw:  So, you’re in town to play with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, on this single sold-out concert. You are so busy and in demand. I looked at your touring schedule. You’re in a different city every two or three days, sometimes a different country every few days. And you’ve played all over the world. You could play or not play anywhere you want. So how do you decide what’s worth your doing?

Lang Lang: It’s a great honor to be back with Atlanta Symphony after six years, and I really love this orchestra. I’ve been playing with them in 2001 already, and that’s almost 25 years ago. And then also this concert is quite important because I haven’t played Beethoven No. 5 in 12 years. Yeah, so we are having a really great time with this piece. And the orchestra really played so beautiful and so inspiring. And I must say, this is like completely new concerto for me to play again after so many years, so it’s a really great honor. I mean, it’s not like I chose them or they chose me. I think it’s just, you know, it’s a great relationship from both sides.

Sarah Zaslaw:  With such a packed schedule, what makes you want to prioritize saving time for interviews like this on a busy day?

Lang Lang: Yeah, I mean, we do have a concert today, but I think it’s nice that I got an invitation by you and by this wonderful series. And I also like to just talk a little bit to share some of my feelings and emotions towards piano and classical music. I know it’s a busy day today, but to talk — to talk is necessary.

Sarah Zaslaw:  Do you have a personal mission statement that helps you sift what you spend your time on?

Lang Lang: Yeah, I really think it’s important to share our feelings to our public and talk constantly about what we do. In the end of the day, we are not as sports athletes, which you have it all the time on television, every game is broadcast, and there’s a much more kind of vibrant press reactions. When we do classical music, we’re very peaceful in a way.

Sarah Zaslaw: There’s no running commentary during the concert. 

Lang Lang: There are, but not as much — very much into the mainstream media. So that’s why I think there are a lot of kids out there trying to learn this art or trying to understand this art, but not enough communication. Not enough topic to talk about. So I think it’s important for us to really bring out the love from what we do and to share with more people. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Just to catch people up here, to fast forward through your early life, you were born in Shenyang in northeastern China in 1982, started piano at age 3, soon began performing and winning prizes. At 9, you and your father moved to Beijing to pursue your music studies. You came to national visibility in China. And then at 15, you and your father upped and moved to the United States so you could study at the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Lang Lang: Yeah. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Why leave? 

Lang Lang: I mean, first of all, we were very thankful to my mom because she has to earn the money to support us. I mean, I had a good proper education in China from my home city and Beijing. And then when I turned 12 years old, I went to Germany for the first competition of international level, and I realized there are many, many exceptional kids around the world plays really well. And so when I won another competition at the age of 13, the Tchaikovsky Young Musician Competition, then I thought it's time to come to great Western schools and to keep studying into the next level. Yeah, and it was the right decision. I was very lucky, I went to Curtis with Gary Grafman and yeah, and so the journey begins from there to the world stage.

Sarah Zaslaw:  I am curious about that transition for you. How was your English at that point?

Lang Lang: Very bad, I was just talking very kind of basic things.

Sarah Zaslaw:  How did you improve it?

Lang Lang: First of all, I went to high school to study, but then I had great English teacher. Dick Duran was the name of my English teacher. And he taught me reading Shakespeare and a lot of great plays. So then I start to talking not only in a concert, but he’s training me to play and speak publicly, with a lot of people, making a speech. So that forced me to learn English very quickly.

Sarah Zaslaw: Life skills. I first saw you in person up close not long after that. I think it was 2000, 2001 at a conference in Tucson —

Lang Lang: Oh, yeah yeah yeah!

Sarah Zaslaw:  —where you came to play for public radio, classical music hosts—

Lang Lang: Yes.

Sarah Zaslaw:  —when one of your first albums were coming out. And I think you played Balakirev's "Islamey" or something.

Lang Lang: "Islamey," yeah.

Sarah Zaslaw: It was just in a carpeted hallway in the hotel or convention center. Rolled out a piano to this hallway and we all just sort of stood around the piano. You remember that?

Lang Lang: I remember, it was 2001 when we were releasing my first Telarc CD, "Live from Tanglewood." And there was like a big NPR conference out in Tucson. Yeah, I remember it was like a really random place in the corner of a hotel and I was playing the "Islamey," crazy piece. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Well, it certainly put you on the map. I mean, that was the days when, that was before streaming, right? Before social media. So radio was a more important outlet and CDs were still something to sell. 

Lang Lang: Yes, physical, physical. A very physical market at that time. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Do you still feel like the same person that you were at that stage?

Lang Lang: Yeah, I mean, of course, now the demand is quite different than at that time, but yeah. But as a person, I think I feel I'm not changed much. Maybe a little bit, because I'm now a father, but other than that, it's not much. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Well, since that time, you’ve had this huge international career as a performer, and not just as a concert pianist, but as a sort of global influencer about music, online and offline, with really too many honors and highlights to list — it’s a long list — but including things people might remember, like a big, spotlit moment at the opening of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, or more recently, playing at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. What do you value about these big, public sorts of events that’s different from a concert hall?

Lang Lang: Yeah, those big ones are really, really good for broadening up classical music to the general public. I remember when I played in Beijing, my phone kind of — it kind of froze because there’s too many messages after the event. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Because everyone in the world was saying, "I saw you!"

Lang Lang: “I saw you! You did, yeah, it was an interesting performance.” That was really, really huge. And then of course to play at the Grammys, also, a few times and it was really great. I think it’s a really great to be on those huge world stage and to play something that we feel the most comfortable and to share those classical music elements to the world. And people actually quite excited. It’s like, "Wow, it’s quite different." This is not like a pop song, but it’s something else, so it’s just quite fresh for them.

Caption

Conductor Gemma New is pictured with pianist Lang Lang and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Atlanta on Sept. 19, 2025.

Credit: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Rand Lines

Sarah Zaslaw: How do you measure how many people you bring into the fold this way?

Lang Lang: It’s very hard. I never really measuring because you really can’t measure. But yeah, I mean, I know there are a lot of people watching it. And then when they come to my recital or a concerto performance, I see many first-time goer for classical music. And they come to the backstage after, when I am doing the signings. They always say, "Oh, this is like my first concert ever. It’s quite interesting, quite good." I said, "Yeah, please come back!" Yeah, classical music’s very passionate. And so now we have a lot of young kids around the world learning piano and other instruments. And so I think it’s a good way to develop more musical talent from those huge events.

Sarah Zaslaw: You grew up with the pressure to be No. 1, and you wanted to be No. 1. You had that sort of drive. What did that mean to you then, and how has your idea of success evolved?

Lang Lang: I mean, I now changed my slogan.

Sarah Zaslaw: Oh, what's your slogan?

Lang Lang: My slogan before was trying to be No. 1; kind of silly, actually. But now my slogan is trying to be the best I can. So that’s — that's what I’m trying to do every night I play in a concert, is to really try to bring everything I have learned, experienced, and to put that into that concert.

Sarah Zaslaw: So it's a less competitive, it's not comparing yourself to other people.

Lang Lang: It's a different type of competitive.

Sarah Zaslaw: With yourself.

Lang Lang: Yeah, it’s more challenging actually in this way, but it’s much more — much more focused in the music rather than something else. Once you are just trying to be No. 1, then you’re not thinking too much about music, but more about yourself. But once you’re putting self into the best you can do in that present time, current time, you’re focused everything into the music. This is exactly like how I have learned when I came to see Gary Graffman at Curtis for the first time. He said, "What’s your plan?" I said, "I’d like to be world-famous pianist." And he says, "You should change your plan. Your plan should be world great musician." I didn’t even understand that time, but now I got it, what he’s talking about.

Sarah Zaslaw: When you perform, do you get into a flow state? Do you know that expression, flow? Like when you're so absorbed that everything else just sort of goes away?

Lang Lang: Yeah! I mean, yeah, of course, you know, on the stage, we are in the music zone. So you're kind of like a different space or a different dimension. But still, you have to be very clear-minded for what you are doing. You know, if you get carried- 

Sarah Zaslaw: Not too carried away. 

Lang Lang: —away with this kind of a great waves or flow, whatever. Then sometimes you're missing note. So you have to be cold and hot at the same time.

Sarah Zaslaw: Some amount of control is required.

Lang Lang: Like a process of making sauna.

Sarah Zaslaw: Do you ever get nervous?

Lang Lang: Yeah, I do sometimes, when I do a new program for the first time. But the best way is to just prepare better and then to rest better. Then the stage fright is getting less.

Sarah Zaslaw: Is that what you would advise someone else who has that problem performing?

Lang Lang: Yeah, I would say just breathe before the concert, breathe. Breathe. It just helps a lot.

Sarah Zaslaw: Like I was doing before this interview.

Lang Lang: Oh, I'm sorry, I made you a lot of breathe.

Sarah Zaslaw: You've been on stage for most of your life, but there've been a couple of times when you couldn't perform publicly: during the pandemic or during some months of an injury. How did that feel to you? It must have been a real change in your lifestyle.

Lang Lang: Actually, yeah. When you're not able to perform such as COVID or inflammation of the arm, you just have to relax and learning new repertoire or reading some books or do something very personal. It's fine; it's not the end of the world. But it is — it is one thing: It is a little bit weird, not able to be on stage. Yeah, it feels like — not very comfortable, you know? I mean, so that's why I have to do something else. Otherwise it will be kind of like really, really strange to not perform on stage. Yeah, but the good thing is that all those things are very short term. So you appreciate more when you come back. You know, on stage you're like you treasure the moment even more, yeah. Once you are playing all the time without any break you feel it's quite easy — It's never easy, but you don't feel "This is special." But when you have a little break it feels much more special to be back. And you appreciate it much more than.

Sarah Zaslaw: You are a parent now yourself. You described your son as being wigglier than you were at his age. With two pianists as parents, odds are that he’s going to be a pretty musical person, but he isn’t you. So what are your expectations and what’s your approach? Push him or let him come to music on his own?

Lang Lang: He’s in a very different area. He’s biggest fan of Beatles. And he’s calling me all the time, “Dad, I want to see Paul McCartney. I want to see Ringo.” He’s really, really crazy about The Beatles. Now he studies drum. And I think he will start guitar at the end of this year. So he’s singing nonstop with all the Beatles songs. Crazy about Beatles. Piano? He likes it. I mean, of course, he feels good when he watches me in concert. He went to my concert a few times. But I think he likes rock and roll more. And also he likes street dance. He’s taking some of the dancing lessons.

Sarah Zaslaw: That's good for those wiggles. 

Lang Lang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Sarah Zaslaw: I'm curious what language you speak at home, because you're Chinese, your wife is Korean-German, you live in Paris, right?

Lang Lang: Yeah, he speak already four languages. He speaks very good Chinese. He can even write a little bit. And his German is very, very good. English is okay. He understands, but not great. And now he starts French from the kindergarten in Paris. He’s very good with language. I’m pretty sure he will be very good with all five languages, Korean as well, in the future.

Sarah Zaslaw: Do you think ear for language and ear for music go together?

Lang Lang: I mean, I am good with the music, my ear, but for the language is not that great. For me, German, French is very hard to learn the pronunciation. So I don’t think it’s really connected that close.

Sarah Zaslaw: I guess you started music younger.

Lang Lang: Yeah, but musically, yeah, but of course you have a good ear, you know, you know the difference, but sometimes you have to practice, you know, to speak with the right accent and the right pronunciation and that takes time.

Sarah Zaslaw: So that’s your own child. And then there are the literally millions of other children that you’ve affected through your concerts and through outreach. This is a phenomenon that’s been dubbed “The Lang Lang Effect.” You have a foundation to help spread music and an educational program for schools. Can you tell us about Keys of Inspiration?

Lang Lang: Yes, we now have 120 schools in the U.S. and around the same amount of schools in China. In the U.S. we call this program Keys of Inspiration. And the idea is to bring smart pianos to each school. We have around 20 to 25 or 30 smart keyboards in those schools.

Sarah Zaslaw: In one room, in a lab.

Lang Lang: And then the idea is for them to not only take the music class but also to play the piano. So in that way that they’re learning how to sing, how to read the note, but also they’re able to play music. During COVID, we brought 700 smart pianos to the homes of those kids because school was not ... they’d have to practice at home at that time. In China, we have the same program, but we changed the name to Happy, Happy Keys— er, Happy Keyboard. So it’s the same program but with slightly different names. And the reason is that here the kids need more inspiration to play classical music, and in China, they have to be more — happier to practice. So that’s why it’s a bit of two different names.

Sarah Zaslaw: Interesting. What practicing tips do you have for people who are starting out or maybe at any level?

Lang Lang: I mean, now with those smart pianos, it's easier.

Sarah Zaslaw: What does the smart piano do?

Lang Lang: You have a pad in front of you, and then you just follow the instruction of the AI teachers. I mean, during the school time, you have a real piano and music teacher, but at home, you can practice — or after school, you can practice with an AI instructor and just telling you, they will play an orchestral sound and you can just play a few notes on top of the orchestra, and then you can easily just follow to push down the banana or apple, you know, dropping and you just play like if you were playing games and then, you already play the real music sound. So this is the good thing about smart pianos that you can learn music much easier and much more enjoyable because you don’t have to be like very academic way of learning. You know, very dry style. With this, you have an orchestra play with you. You have somebody’s fixing your fingering. “Oh, the wrong fingering, the wrong note.” The program is doing that. And then you can go like a Super Mario game, you know, you can go to the next level, the next level. And then with our method, which we call the Lang Lang Piano Method, it’s like an adventure. We have a Halloween party. We have the fantasy of old castle. So each song we intend to have some stories behind.

Sarah Zaslaw: And you have the kids compose, write their own music.

Lang Lang: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's an idea.

Sarah Zaslaw: Can anybody do that? 

Lang Lang: Easily. 

Sarah Zaslaw: It seems so mysterious.

Lang Lang: No, I mean, with the notes, you can just improvise. In the beginning, nobody will know what we're doing, but you're starting to have a connection to the note. But once you start to do the theory and really understand behind the harmonic figures, you can write, easily, a pop song. Yeah, that you can just do a, like — a like, song formation quite easy from that.

Sarah Zaslaw:  Do you compose or improvise? 

Lang Lang: I'm not, I am not really. I can do improvisation, but I'm not a composer.

Sarah Zaslaw: You recorded music for the racing game Gran Turismo 5. Are you a gamer yourself?

Lang Lang: That was quite interesting that they wanted all classical music into the game — from Prokofiev, from the "Pathetique” Sonata by Beethoven. So for my new album, Piano Book 2, which is releasing next month, I actually included some of the gaming songs, and then we made it like classical-music style, so in a way that it sounds like Chopin or Rachmaninoff. Super Mario sounds like Rachmaninoff.

Sarah Zaslaw: Let me ask you about this new project. Piano Book. You released the first Piano Book a few years ago. This is Piano Book 2. That sounds like a series for students. Is that what the title supposed to be?

Lang Lang: It’s for piano lovers. Let’s put it this way. Not only for students, but it’s very friendly to students because there are a lot of pieces you can connect to your studies: from the Beethoven “Lost Penny Variations” to the Beethoven “Turkish March.” And then you have Tchaikovsky or Grieg for young musicians’ practice. And then in the same time you have some of the Einaudi, Sati, that kind of lighter classical music. Yeah, this has everything, some Liszt, Mendelssohn.

Caption

Lang Lang's newest album, Piano Book 2, is released on Oct. 17, 2025.

Credit: Deutsche Grammophon

Sarah Zaslaw: One of the featured tracks is Franz Liszt’s “Consolation No. 2,” which you’ve described as a mix of intimacy and grandeur. Do you also find it consoling, like its title?

Lang Lang: It is a real consolation. Yeah, I mean, that’s what Liszt wrote. And it quite fits the piece. I’m actually playing this piece as my new recital program next year.

Sarah Zaslaw: What other music consoles you in hard times?

Lang Lang: I would say Bach “Goldberg Variations” is really the best piece to console myself and to listener. It’s a great work, but with a very complicated harmonic cadence, and it’s the structure of the voicing. But somehow it's so, it's so — the way he wrote it was so intelligent, and when you listen to it, you always get new ideas behind the note, behind the meaning of the bars. That’s why I just love Bach. He’s so, so inspiring.

Sarah Zaslaw: You've talked a lot about your sort of role as an ambassador for music, wanting to spread it to everyone who can. In this complicated world, can music itself be a form of diplomacy?

Lang Lang: I mean, look, if the music — if you ask whether this concert or this piece will change the world, it will not. But it will bring some good meaning, to bring some a good message, I would say, and to put people into the same room and to listen to each other. I think that’s what music can do. But does it make world peace right away? I don’t know, but at least it’s put the mood in a certain way, yeah. So yeah, I hope music will play a good part of this progress.

Sarah Zaslaw: With everything you've done, what's something you haven't done yet that you still wanna do?

Lang Lang: Of course, music education. This is quite important. We are still working very hard on this and to try to change some of the settings in the public schools for this music class to get into with more schools in the U.S. and in China and in the world. We also have — we started a little bit in Europe as well. Each country is so different, you know, you really can’t compare with—

Sarah Zaslaw:  The school systems and musical culture. 

Lang Lang: Yeah, it's a very very different type of — But still everybody realizes how important is the music class in the public schools. Everybody understands that in the — in the same way. So, so at least this is something we have to keep working on.

Sarah Zaslaw: And then on a lighter note to end, aside from all the working, how do you relax or unwind? I gather you like ca tvideos.

Lang Lang: I mean, I like sometimes to see social media videos to chill. And also I really love to — being in the park. Yesterday actually I went to the Piedmont Park, the Botanical Garden. It was very beautiful with the “Alice in Wonderland” theme. And I already saw some of the big pumpkins for Halloween.

Sarah Zaslaw: Oh great, you have time to do that, that's nice. Anything else that you'd like to share with our audience in Georgia or beyond?

Lang Lang: I'm just saying that I just want to say that I'm so happy to be back with Atlanta Symphony. And also last year I played, also in Georgia, a recital in April. And I think the audience here is really, really great. Since when I came in 2001, I already found there's so much passion for classical music. And also they have a lot of new audience. And I really hope that you please keep this great tradition and to always come to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's concert and to be a supporter of classical music and to enjoy the moment.

Sarah Zaslaw: This was fantastic. Lang Lang, thank you so much.

Lang Lang: Pleasure. Thank you.