Pianist Lang Lang has signed an exclusive five-year contract with Deutsche Grammophon, the label announced Tuesday. The 20-year-old keyboard sensation recorded his first two albums with Telarc.
Lang Lang's first Deutsche Grammophon CD, to be released in July, will include Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn piano concertos, recorded with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Subsequent recording plans reportedly include both Chopin piano concertos, one of the concertos of Rachmaninoff and a solo recital.
The winner of the Tchaikovsky Young Musicians' Competition in Tokyo — and a star in his native China — at the age of 13, Lang Lang came to the United States the following year and entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1997. While still a student there, he made a series of dramatic debuts around the world, starting with a last-minute substitution for André Watts at the 1999 Ravinia Festival.
Both of his previous CDs benefited from the excitement of live performance.
The first was a 2001 solo recital at Tanglewood; the second included
Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, recorded at a 2002 BBC Proms concert at
Royal Albert Hall, and a series of Scriabin Etudes which was recorded in a
studio with an audience. A third studio recording went
unreleased.
