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Stories   >   Lang Lang celebrates beloved Disney songs with musical and visual experience at Ithra / VARIETY

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Lang Lang celebrates beloved Disney songs with musical and visual experience at Ithra / VARIETY

Posted: February 8, 2024

The world-renowned pianist performed new arrangements of melodies featured in some of the most magical stories told on screen

VARIETY's Daniel Kany writes…..Born in China, Lang Lang began playing music and learning the piano at age 3 after he was inspired by Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody?No. 2,” which he first heard in an animation. “As a young child, animation sparked my imagination and transported me to other worlds,” he said. “The music was a big part of this experience and led to my lifelong love of classical music.”

The classical piano virtuoso has been traveling to 10 cities around the world with a program of songs from Disney animated films. The tour, which shares the title of the “Lang Lang – the Disney Book” album, recently made its only stop in the Middle East on Dec. 7 at the Ithra Theater inside the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture.

For the one-night-only concert in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the 41-year-old pianist was joined by Poland’s Beethoven Academy Orchestra and a cadre of musical friends to perform several popular pieces, including the hilariously witty “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” (1933) for solo piano and “It’s All Right” from the 2020 film “Soul.”

The event featured 19 songs and two encores that followed a minutes-long standing ovation. It was a fitting song list for a center devoted to world culture since the “classic tunes” — as Lang Lang calls them — connect in style to places all around the world: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (Paris), “The Jungle Book” (India), “Aladdin” (the Middle East) and “Tarzan” (Africa).

The first act also included several highlights: an exhilarating salsa for solo piano from “Encanto” (Colombia), the gorgeous “Reflection” from “Mulan” (China) featuring the supremely talented Guo Gan on erhu, and a magical rendition of “Feed the Birds” from “Mary Poppins” (London).

The “classic tunes” came to life with new arrangements that offered new depth by adding musical content that dug deeply into the melodies and structural modulations, furthering them as vehicles not merely for Lang Lang’s technical prowess but also as serious classical music content in the romantic style.  

The role of romanticism in “Lang Lang – the Disney Book” cannot be overstated. It departs from the classical style by using longer, more complex melodies, more chromaticism, more dynamics and more emotion. While this romantic style is endemic to Disney’s songbook, it allows for using the symphony – ably conducted by the American Edwin Outwater – to its maximum dynamic effect, using every note on the piano and using the broadest possible emotional range. In addition, chromaticism was used to underscore the energetic excitement of Lang Lang’s 88-key runs and to connect to musical content reflective of American jazz, blues and soul music. Lang Lang credits the arrangers of his album — Stephen Hough, Natalie Tenenbaum and Randy Kerber — for enriching the musicality of the tunes and putting his virtuosity on full display.

The concert was enjoyed by those in the 900-seat, opera house-style Ithra Theater and by 1,500 people via a live stream that was projected onto the façade of the 18-story Ithra Tower. Projections were elegantly incorporated into the concert to complement certain songs, with images and animations screened above Lang Lang and the musicians. “Colors of the Wind” from “Pocahontas” (1995) included a simple image of sunrays falling through a serenely idyllic forest. Later, as the musicians performed “Feed the Birds,” a slow pan of a watercolor depicted London, while the “Tangled” (2010) segment featured an image of Rapunzel’s tower.  

Also during his visit to the kingdom, Lang Lang provided masterclasses to a pair of promising Saudi students. Lang Lang explained that his particular interest in making an album of Disney songs and his gentler teaching style with students were both directly related to his recently becoming a father. He and his wife Gina Alice Redlinger, who sang “When You Wish Upon a Star” from 1940’s “Pinocchio,” have been active with the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, which is focused on supporting and inspiring young classical musicians. Among the couple’s primary interests is introducing classical music to young people.

The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture’s Ithra Theater first opened in 2018. The center also features a five-gallery museum, a four-story library, a 300-seat cinema, a creativity center called the Idea Lab, a children’s museum, restaurants, an 18-story tower with education facilities and studios, a vast open plaza and a great hall that currently features the large-scale installation “Sea/Sky.”

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