Journey of a Thousand Miles

May 5, 2008
David Ritz, cowriter to the stars, helps pen two very different music autobiographies.
Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story
Lang Lang
with David Ritz. Spiegel & Grau
, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-385-52456-8

By his own account, internationally renowned classical pianist Lang Lang has literally traveled the world in an attempt to find himself and to share his music. Only 25, this young piano prodigy became mesmerized by classical music when he heard, before he was two, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 as the score for a Tom and Jerry
cartoon. By the age of five, he won first place in the Shenyang Piano Competition, and his father soon pressed him to become the number one pianist in the world. Through a series of loosely connected anecdotes, Lang Lang retells the story of his father's fierce determination to have Lang Lang win at all costs and his father's willingness to sacrifice his family and his job for his son's success. Following accolades in China and Europe, Lang and his father move to Philadelphia, where Lang enrolls in the prestigious Curtis School of Music at age 14. By 17, Lang substituted for André Watts at the Ravinia Festival in suburban Chicago and launched his career. Lang's successes are admirable, and his memoir reveals a young man still searching for the meaning of life and music.

January 1, 2009
Adult/High School-This world-renowned pianist was born to parents whose lives and aspirations were interrupted by China's Cultural Revolution. Like his entire generation, he was an only child due to his country's population-control policy. This created a kind of perfect storm. In some families, every ambition parents had for their own lives was visited upon their offspring. That was the case with Lang Lang, whose creative and musical parents were delighted when their son showed great interest and talent for piano at an early age. While this is the story of his life, it is also the story of a family's struggle to balance ambition, expectations, and relationships, and it illustrates to the extreme the pressure many young people face to live up to their own and their parents' expectations. The writing is immediate and emotional, drawing readers into a life of hard work, dedication, music, competition, and performance. Lang Lang's life and creative choices demonstrate a willingness to take chances and trust his instincts, honed through years of battling insular established systems."Charlotte Bradshaw, San Mateo County Library, CA"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2008
The young star in classical music is a 26-year-old pianist from industrial northeastern China. His musical parents, whose own careers were squelched by Maos Cultural Revolution, groomed Lang to be the "number one" classical pianist (he explains that this reflects a national obsession with winning) from early childhood on. His father, Guoren, enforced a grueling schedule of daily practice, scrimped to get the best teachers, and eventually moved with Lang to Beijing, home of the National Conservatory of Music, where they lived extremely modestly on Langs mothers telephone-company salary back in Shenyang (she could afford visiting very infrequently). It all paid off, of course, but it never seemed a sure thing, and it took its toll on father-son relations. Lang and veteran celebrity-coauthor Ritz (see also The Adventures of Grand Master Flash, reviewed in this issue) make Langs story suspenseful and engrossing. Until late in the book, though, when Lang goes to Philadelphias Curtis Institute on full scholarship, Guoren dominates it. Those who value a good read wont complain about that at all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)