From May 23^rd to 28^th, the NCPA will join hands with Lang Lang, a world-renowned piano virtuoso, to carry out a series of activities at the six-day “Lang Lang Art Week”. During the “Lang Lang Art Week” 2025, the NCPA will make full use of its broad stage space as “a performing arts centre with three locations” to hold a variety of artistic events, including a piano recital (at the NCPA on 28^th), a concerto concert (at the Beijing Performing Arts Centre on 23^rd and 25^th), a piano masterclass (at the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre on 24^th), etc., to display Lang Lang’s exquisite and extraordinary piano artistry from all angles to immerse the audience in world-class piano art experiences.


On May 23^rd and 25^th, Lang Lang will work with the China NCPA Orchestra to give two stunning concerts under LÜ Jia’s leadership at the Concert Hall of the Beijing Performance Arts Centre. The concerts will feature French music classics, including Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major and Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor. Of the two treasured French piano pieces, the former is as lively and bright as Mozart’s music and boasts a swinging rhythm that Ravel extracted from jazz. The latter is a paragon of Romantic French concertos, which brings out the best in the expressive power of the orchestra while creating a gorgeous and dreamy interpretive space for piano solo.

It is particularly noteworthy that it will be the first time for Lang Lang to give a live interpretation of Ravel’s complete Piano Concerto in G Major in China. He played it with the Staatskapelle Dresden at the Wiener Musikverein in 2024. As a key highlight of the Staatskapelle Dresden’s 475^th anniversary tour, their performance drew extensive attention and high praise. At this year’s “Lang Lang Art Week”, Lang Lang will render this piece with the China NCPA Orchestra under LÜ Jia’s baton. It will be the first time for them to share the stage at the Concert Hall of the Beijing Performing Arts Centre. Lang Lang will perform on the customised Steinway piano that he picked for the China NCPA Orchestra in Hamburg, Germany three years ago.

In the second half of the concert, LÜ Jia will conduct the China NCPA Orchestra in presenting the modern French composer Henri Dutilleux’s Symphony No. 1, which is rarely heard live.

At 14:00 on May 24^th, Lang Lang will appear at the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre to offer a piano masterclass there. At that time, four children pianists selected from all over China will perform piano works by Schubert, Haydn, Saint-Saëns and Brahms. From playing techniques to musical expression, Lang Lang will mentor every child pianist face to face in accordance with their personal needs. He will also interact with the audience, talking freely with them about the beauty of music. Two giant LED screens will be powered on to capture close-ups of hand movements and score details in real time so that the audience can appreciate the master’s teaching wisdom at short range.

Since its establishment at the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre in August 2021, the Lang Lang Studio has been a solid base for cultivating musicians and spreading the musical culture. Lang Lang offers a masterclass here every year. It is not only one of the classic musical events carried out at the NCPA Taihu Stage Art Centre, but also an embodiment of how Lang Lang passes on the artistic mission and social value. The masterclass makes classical art resources accessible to the public, especially to youngsters, helping more children to chase their dream of music. This is a way to practise the idea that “music makes life better”. This also shows that the NCPA never stops fulfilling its mission of “benefiting the people with art”.

At 19:30 on May 28^th, Lang Lang will return to the NCPA Concert Hall and give a piano recital to round off the Art Week. As one of the highlights of the NCPA Piano Virtuosos 2025, the recital will feature Romantic piano works, including Fauré’s Pavane, Schumann’s Kreisleriana and excerpts from Chopin’s Mazurkas. These pieces require both consummate technical and artistic skills, demonstrating Lang Lang’s deep understanding of classical music and echoing his original aspiration to promote the popularisation of classical music through his albums released in recent years including Piano Book and Lang Lang’s Disney.

At the end of 2007, Lang Lang cooperated with Seiji Ozawa, a world-renowned conductor, in performing at the NCPA’s First New Year’s Concert, for which the NCPA creatively issued standing-room tickets. In January 2008, Lang Lang became the first artist to give a piano recital at the NCPA after its founding. All the tickets were sold out, and even the standing-room tickets were snapped up within half an hour by the audience who had been waiting in line for a long time. In December 2012, Lang Lang, for the first time, joined hands with the China NCPA Orchestra in interpreting Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” at the NCPA’s Fifth Anniversary Concert, creating an exciting and sleepless night for music lovers in Beijing. In 2014, he was awarded the title of “Global Music Promotion Ambassador of the NCPA”. In 2017, when the NCPA had been in existence for ten years, he joined the NCPA as a resident artist of the year...

Every time he works with the NCPA, Lang Lang does not just perform on the stage. Instead, by making artistic innovations and enhancing their sense of social responsibility in a continual way, the two sides have reached cooperation with each other to promote the development of classical music in China. This time, the NCPA is exerting itself to organise the Lang Lang Art Week”. This shows that the NCPA, an internationally acclaimed national performing arts centre, highly recognises the world-class Chinese musician Lang Lang and his artistic achievements. This also shows that both sides care about their “profound friendship”.

At this year’s Lang Lang Arts Week, the audience can not only enjoy a meaningful and majestic symphony concert, but also appreciate Lang Lang’s superb solo skills at close range, and even further, learn more about the piano in the lively masterclass… You will feel as if walking into a world-class immersive piano art festival, where you see an in-depth exploration of art inheritance, education popularisation and cultural confidence. As Lang Lang said, “Music can heal people, unite them and inspire them to get better.” This music carnival will soon kick off in early summer. Under the joint guidance of Lang Lang and the NCPA, classical music is bound to have a brighter future in China.