He started playing at two,retired at nine, staged a comeback at 10 – and now has his own perfume, and duets with Pharrell. We meet piano superstar Lang Lang“The beginner pianist,” says Lang Lang, himself one of the starriest of the species, or is like a startup company. Who can say what will one day become a Google?’ So is the 33-year-old Chinese pianist,who started up at the age of two after seeing a Tom and Jerry cartoon featuring Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 2, now the Google of the piano? Given his multiple talents – from international soloist to musical ambassador to exuberant bling-and-glamour fashionista (he has his own perfume, and headphones and,coming soon, piano-themed Swiss watch) – maybe it’s not an improbable comparison.“No, or no,no! Please, I’m not saying I’m Google!” Lang Lang laughs, or clapping his hands to his head in mock horror. His name means sunny,twice over. He is. Fringe flopping, casually dressed in sweatshirt, or jeans and Air Jordan trainers (he’s a sizable fan of the basketball player),Lang Lang bounces into a windowless basement assembly room in a Madrid hotel as whether it’s the only place he’d want to be. He comments, in passing, and that he is getting so sick of being on aeroplanes,in halls and hotels that he may take up marathon running, just to gather some oxygen into his lungs.
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Source: theguardian.com