Happy 30th Birthday Lang Lang! Birthday memories and concert celebrations

June 15th is Chinese pianist Lang Lang's birthday.

He had a birthday concert in Berlin's 02 World  stadium.
 Here's a link to his birthday concert Chopin Etude performance and Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor. He has multiple young pianists performing Schubert's March Militaire in unison. Followed by a finale with Jazz great Herbie Hancock (and a Chinese piano piece - Autumn Moon on Calm Lake).

Here are some memories from birthdays past.

 Lang Lang doing a Birthday dance in Essen Germany, 2010

And a Sparkling Birthday cake for Lang Lang! Here's Lang Lang performing 'Happy Birthday' to his mother

Here's a surprise Happy Birthday in a concert in 2010


Further reading
CHILD PRODIGY PIANIST LANG LANG TURNS 30 WITH EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL

ABRSM Grade 1 Piano Sightreading tips

As it approaches the exam period. I thought I'd share some tips for the ABRSM Grade 1 Piano sightreading element of the Grade 1 Piano exam.

Two useful books published by the ABRSM - Associated Board, Royal Schools of Music for the piano are:

• Joining the Dots, Grade 1 by Alan Bullard
• Grade 1 Sightreading specimen tests.
• Grade 1 Piano Syllabus (ABRSM) 

Characteristics of Grade 1 Sight reading
What keys?

• F major (B flat)
• D minor (C#)
• G major (F sharp)
• C major 
• A minor (G sharp)

Tend to have fixed five finger positions in the left and right hands. But they give you a finger number to help you anchor your hands into the correct position!

Tips
As with any sightreading, scan the time signature (2/4 or 3/4  or 4/4 for Grade 1)
Key Signature - remember from your scales that one flat will mean the key is in F major and therefore all Bs are Bb (B flat). There may be additional incidentals (sharps) in the minor keys.

Hand position: lock on
For each hand: lock on to the first note,  your  first starting note of each hand and use the suggested fingering, this will then get all your five finger position over the notes. Keep your fingers over the keys during the practice, and hold them there until you finish completing the sightreading exercise. This will ensure you don't get your fingers out of position and press a wrong note.

Eyes on the score
Once you've got your notes securely over the keys you are playing, try as best you can to keep your eyes on the score, this will help keep your pulse and and flow to the music. Constantly looking down to your hands and back to the score introduces time delays and interrupts the flow of music.

Pulse try and keep a steady pulse throughout without too many stops and starts, remember the time signature and as best you can give an emphasis on the downbeat (first beat).


Dynamics - quite often when we are just trying to get the correct notes in sightreading, we forget the dynamics, assuming you get the correct notes, remember the dynamics.
P (piano) soft
F (forte) loud

Make sure you're familiar with all the musical notation indicated in the sightreading specimen tests such as.  Remember it's not only important to know what they mean, but to actually obey them! You'll get a much better score if you do.

• Slurs (loud soft) 
• Phrase marks - Phrase (play legato and imagine you are singing this)
• Staccato (detached)
• Accents (emphasis) 

To be good at sightreading, you should do this on a regular basis, always explore new music you are interested in that's at your grade level and try and play them! Use sightreading books like the ones suggested above as guided daily practice.

Lang Lang's Piano Performance at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert

If you had to prepare a concert, fit for a Queen, what would you perform?

Well, Lang Lang had that rare honour, and on this occasion in June 2012, it was
Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #6 and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue [excerpt]. The recital was for  Queen Elizabeth II, who had her Diamond Jubilee, the 60th Anniversary since she was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom.

Here's the video below, enjoy.



On the UK Guardian newspaper's website, [8:07pm] there was a report that Elton John was refusing to go on stage after this display of virtuosity! Lang Lang's choice as performer, provoked some lively discussion, especially from pianist James Rhodes, British pianist who wrote in the telegraph blog: Why was there no British pianist at the Jubilee concert? Lang Lang playing butchered Gershwin isn't good enough.

Footage on the BBC website is also available.

Pianist Yuanfan Yang BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist 2012 & 2010

Yuanfan winning the keyboard category 2010

Those of you who watched  the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition Final this year would have noticed a familiar face - Yuanfan Yang, twice finalist in the prestigious competition. He was up against category winners in other instrument classes such as woodwind, percussion and strings.

 Just how difficult is this competition, well to enter, you have to have achieved Grade 8 piano (equivalent level to a single movement in Beethoven's Moonlight sonata or Pathetique sonata), and applicants for this entire competition run in the hundreds.

First, take a look at his background and profile this emerging talent.
 
Profile of Yuanfan at the BBC Young Musician Piano Competition Final 2010

Here's Yuanfan performing Grieg's Piano Concerto at the 2012 Competition Final Here's Yuanfan performing
 Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15 in A minor, S. 244 Rákóczi-Marsch (Youtube) 
Early signs of talent: Playing back tunes on the piano age 6
Started piano lessons: Age 6
Finished Grade 8 Piano: Age 8 (mark Distinction, 130 marks out of 150)
Dip ABRSM (Performers diploma): Age 10
Currently studying (as of 2012): Chethams School of Music (studies piano under Murray McLachlan and composition with Dr. Jeremy Pike)


Some competitive highlights: 


2012
BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist & Keyboard Category Winner
Junior Group Prize of Golden Key International Piano Composition Competition

2011
1st Prize and the Overall Award in the EPTA UK Composition Competition 2011

2010
EPTA UK Piano Competition (European Piano Teachers Association)
RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music) James Mottram International Piano Competition (under 19 category)
BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist & Keyboard Category Winner

2009
Manchester International Piano Competition for Young Pianists (age 16 and under category)
Chetham’s Yamaha Piano Competition and the 2009 Ryszard Bakst Chopin Prize (junior division)

Yuanfan's Blog and Official Website

Lang Lang's Mozart - Masterclass: Comedy, Character, and Storytelling

Pianist Noriko Ogawa says Mozart is difficult to pull off as his music "shows off every part and potential of you as a musician, your potential as a musician, how to turn trills, how soft and loud, every little thing has to be decided by the performer, that's why all musicians say Mozart is the most difficult composer to play as a performer*"

 So let's take a successful creative concert pianist, such as Lang Lang, and examine

his approach to Mozart. We'll do this by observing Lang Lang in action in a piano masterclass which took place in New Jersey in c2009 and  discover his musical thinking.  I summarise Lang Lang's main points from his masterclass videos below with clarification and elaboration.




The 'sound' of Mozart Lang Lang agrees that Mozart's music  is hard to play, especially to get the 'sound' of Mozart. What Lang Lang means is that you must have the character of Mozart's music when you play. How do we get this character, according to Lang Lang, "Mozart always goes up" with his phrases (in other words, your fingers become lighter and uplifting towards the end of a phrase), getting softer as you rise up the keyboard. Put simply, the end of the phrase is lighter. An important element is to note the music's cheerful character within the context of this piece.

Musical Storytelling
Lang Lang really brings music to life, through imaginative musical storytelling, He encourages the participants to create a story to suit the musical passage, he explains to his amused audience: "I'm lost, where I am?" "I'm in New Jersey, No wait, I'm in New York" and so forth.  By using musical imagination, one can spot certain motifs in Mozart's music and align them to emotional colours, and Lang Lang uses an example of a 'hope motif'. There are also unexpected surprises in Mozart's music, recognise those instances and convey that feeling.

 

Mozart's a lightweight?  
Ornaments, highly prevalent in baroque and classical music, here Lang Lang reminds the young pianist,
to play ornaments lightly, not so heavily in the fingers. 

Sing a Song
As we all know, Mozart wrote some great Operas, and the singing voice, is probably paramount in his composition, so therefore Lang Lang, utters the words, sing.  

Split Personality - a Comical Genius
Sing in combination with the character contrasts of a particular passage which alternates between seriousness and light heartedness, encourages Lang Lang, further adding that Mozart is ' a little bit crazy, that's why he's a genius' but not only that, a 'funny guy.' Now, Lang Lang really shows he shares Mozart's comic jest (cheek) by giving some ideas for a particular passage: perhaps Mozart is Crying, maybe he's begging for Ice cream, Vanilla, no, chocolate, No [perhaps] I don't want this [ice cream anymore].  Lang Lang brings the participant's attention to the effect Mozart conveys by alternating in rapid succession between Major Minor, Major Minor modes, perhaps, in essence playing a game.

So to conclude, let's hear Lang Lang perform Mozart's Sonata in B flat Major, K.333, 3rd Movement. Certainly from Lang Lang's facial expressions, he's definitely 'in character' with Mozart.
*Noriko Ogawa quote from Saturday Classics, BBC Radio 3, 07 April 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01fhy0q/Saturday_Classics_Noriko_Ogawa/