Performing “Chineseness” on the Western Concert Stage: The Case of Lang Lang

Over the past 4 decades, Asian American performers of Western classical music have become a major force in the music industry. Among their ranks are A-list soloists, such as Sarah Chang and Yo-Yo Ma, members of world-renowned chamber groups, such as the siblings that make up the Ying Quartet, and concert-masters of such major ensembles as the Chicago Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Arts administrators and admissions officers of music schools noticed the enormous influx of Asian Americans into classical music by the 1970s. Soon after, journalists began to write about it. In a 1980 New York Times article entitled “Oriental Musicians Come of Age,” Leslie Rubinstein noted that 40 percent of the total enrollment (and two-thirds of the pianists) at Juilliard’s precollege division was of Asian descent (Rubinstein 1980). Eight years later, John Rockwell wrote a fascinating article in which he argued that the influx of classical musicians of Asian descent was changing what he called the “New York sound.” He asserts, “It might be argued that there hasn’t been such a rewarding cultural synthesis in the classical performing arts as that currently taking place between Asian students and New York teachers and overall urban spirit since the blend of Russian passion and Jewish soul that characterized many of the great instrumentalists of earlier in the century” (Rockwell 1988).

Despite Asian Americans’ visibility in Western classical music, scholars of Asian American culture have until very recently ignored this phenomenon. There have been a few conference presentations on this topic by such scholars as Maiko Kawabata (2004), Roe-Min Kok (2006), and Mari Yoshihara (2006) over the past 5 years, but substantial publications have only arrived in the past year (Yang 2007; Yoshihara 2007). With this article, I aim to add to this growing literature by examining one Chinese American performer, Lang Lang, and his performances of “Chineseness.”

At 26, Lang Lang is one of the most sought-after pianists of our time. Born in Shenyang in northern China, Lang began studying piano when he was three and entered the Central Conservatory in Beijing when he was nine. After winning the Tchaikovsky Young Musicians Competition in 1995, he enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he still lives. Lang’s big break came in August 1999, when he substituted for an indisposed Andre Watts at a Chicago Symphony gala concert. Since then, he has performed with most of the world’s greatest orchestras and recorded ten CDs for Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon.

Although I play piano and attend concerts of Western classical music, I do not generally pay much attention to rising stars. As a result, I did not follow Lang’s career until an aunt asked me what I thought of his playing about 3 years ago. During this rather one-sided conversation (let’s say that she is not Lang’s biggest fan), my aunt expressed dismay at the pianist’s concert dress. She had just watched the video of the Verbier Festival’s Piano Extravaganza concert in 2003 (see Figure 1), and she was put off by Lang’s decision to wear a traditional Chinese gown. For her, this was a clear example of the pianist’s “style-over-substance” attitude.

My aunt is, of course, partially right. In a candid interview with Mark McCord of the South China Morning Post, Lang readily acknowledges that some of the critical attention he has received is due to the fact that he is Chinese and not “from the West” (McCord 2002). Given that he is a great show-man—just watch his gestures as he prepares for particularly hard entrances in concertos—one can hardly doubt that he plays up his Chineseness in part to garner even more press. Why else would he wear a Chinese gown for the Verbier Festival gala?

Given the extensiveness of Lang’s Chinese projects and his statements, however, one must recognize that additional attention is not his only motive. In the aforementioned South China Morning Post article, Lang tells McCord, “Two hundred years ago...