▲This photo, provided by Universal Korea, shows Pianist Lang Lang's album "Disney Book." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

 

 

SEOUL, August 31 (Yonhap) -- World renowned pianist Lang Lang, 40 years old from China, rearranged Disney animation musics into a piano music.

Lang Lang, who stay in Berlin, Germany, introduced Disney Book, which will be released on Sept. 16, as an album “that he has been dreaming of for a long time” during an video interview with Korean press on Tuesday.

He said, “ Because everyone knows disney songs and they are familiar to people, it was not easy making a piano music,” adding, “I hope people do not just regard this album as background music.”

“Disney Book” is an album celebrating the 100th anniversary of Disney, and consists of songs from beginning works like “Pinocchio” and “Snow White” to latest works like “Frozen,” “Soul,” and “Encanto.”

Lang Lang said, “It was an epic work, taking four years to arrange. It was not easy,” adding, “I wanted these musics to be on a par with songs by famous composers like Chopin, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff, so I placed emphasis on how would they have interpreted the songs.”

Lang Lang played piano during the interview to show what kinds of feelings he interpreted from the original songs.

The pianist said, “I arranged ‘The Jungle Book’ as modern Jazz, ‘Lion King’ and ‘Dumbo’ as Debussy, ‘Let it go’ as Rachmaniiff, ‘Encanto’ as Latin Jazz, and ‘Soul’ as New Orleans Jazz.”

Pinocchio’s theme song “When You Wish Upon A Star” was sung by his Korean-German wife Gina Alice in English and Korean, adding more specialty. This song is for their son.

Although the work of transferring Disney hit songs to piano classic styles was not so much different from others regarding technicality, there was more autonomy in arrangement.

Lang Lang said, “I used to record knowing what I want for sure, but I had to fix about half of the music after recording for this album,” adding, “World famous composers to classic and pop music professionals participated, and it has various musics combined.”

He added, “What I liked about this album was I could change sounds if I did not like it,” adding, “I would have a nightmare if I changed even a note from Beethoven’s music, but it was not like that for this album.”

He also said, “I enhanced completeness by recording the album with some time. and I participated more on the making of album.” He showed his affection saying, “It’s an album made over a long period of time.”

Regarding the plan to perform in Korea, He said, “It could be as early as this year, but we are discussing if I could visit Korea and perform around next summer,” adding, “Korea is an important country regarding music, and if I can, I want to visit Korea and perform.”

(This article is translated from Korean to English by Jiwon Woo.)

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