Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story

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. (July)