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Performing arts in Hong Kong
LifestyleArts & Culture

Pianist Lang Lang releases Disney album, and plans a Disney-meets-Bach live concert in Hong Kong in 2023

  • Lang Lang, who was a big fan of Disney as a child, has rearranged 27 Disney theme songs for his album, The Disney Book
  • The Chinese pianist announced an upcoming concert in Hong Kong in 2023, where he will play a mix of Disney songs and Bach’s Goldberg Variations

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Lang Lang in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at the Disneyland Resort, California. He is promoting his new album The Disney Book, a collection of newly arranged theme songs. Photo: Richard Harbaugh
Enid Tsui

Pianist Lang Lang has announced plans for a live concert in Hong Kong in 2023 that will feature an unconventional pairing of Bach and Disney.

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Speaking two days ahead of the September 16 China release of The Disney Book, which features 27 newly arranged theme songs ranging from films such as 1964’s Mary Poppins and Encanto in 2021, the Chinese megastar said he was looking forward to returning to the city three years after his last appearance.

“I really look forward to returning to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, where I last performed in 2020 playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2,” he said. While the dates are yet to be confirmed, Lang Lang said he will play Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which he recorded for a 2020 album, as well as a number of tunes from the Disney album.
The 40-year-old was speaking from Los Angeles during an online press conference to launch the Disney album, which features guest singers and musicians such as Andrea Bocelli, who sings an Italian version of “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan, the guitarist Milos Karadaglic (featured in “Remember Me”, from Coco), and Lang Lang’s wife, the German-Korean pianist Gina Alice Redlinger, who sings the classic “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio.
The cover of Lang Lang’s “The Disney Book”, an album of newly arranged theme songs released on September 16, 2022. Photo: Universal Music
The cover of Lang Lang’s “The Disney Book”, an album of newly arranged theme songs released on September 16, 2022. Photo: Universal Music

Lang, who in a 2009 memoir recalled how his single-minded father went to extreme lengths to push him as a child prodigy, talked of his love of cartoons when there were few breaks from practising.

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“It was my favourite thing apart from playing the piano. And back then, cartoons used a lot of classical music and so it was a good way to learn music, too,” he said, adding that to make piano scores more approachable he put cartoon stickers on the covers: Mickey Mouse for Carl Czerny, for example.

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