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New York’s flagship orchestra maps out a busy week with multiple agendas. The main event is a program with the world’s most popular pianist, Lang Lang; he collaborates with Alan Gilbert and the ensemble in Bartók’s incisive Second Piano Concerto, the centerpiece of a program bookended by two colorful and propulsive works, Magnus Lindberg’s “Feria” and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major. (Jan. 18-19 at 7:30 and Jan. 20-21 at 8.) | Lang Lang is not only a piano phenom but also a celebrity ambassador representing a country with a booming classical-music culture.

Being an Honorary Doctor with the Royal College of Music in London, Lang Lang is making a special visit to the RCM to give a masterclass to some of the star pianists in the future.

The ticket ballot will open online on Friday 9 December and the closing date for applications is 29 February 2012.

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Spectacular Performance for Global Fans
By Asia’s Biggest Stars

Super Junior, Miss A, Beast, Hyuna
Pianist Lang Lang, Koda Kumi & Zhang Liang Ying

2011 MAMA by Mnet
November 29, 2011 (Tuesday) 7PM (Local Korea Time)
Singapore Indoor Stadium

SEOUL, Korea – The shiniest of all K-pop stars along with top artists from across Asia will be literally filling the skies of Singapore for the 2011 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) to be held on November 29th bringing the world together as one through music.

Liselotte Jongedijk is one “insanely” proud piano teacher. Her 12-year-old student, Shikara Fahie, showed her music chops Tuesday when she came face-to-face with piano virtuoso Lang Lang. Confronted unexpectedly with the smiling, high-fiving Lang Lang in the back hallway of Roy Thomson Hall, she was the only one of five students to volunteer to play when the 29-year-old challenged them to sit beside him at the Steinway grand piano nearby.

And it certainly wasn't “Chopsticks.”

Dubbed as one of the most successful classical musician of his time, Lang Lang is an award-winning composer, playing to sold out recitals all over the world.

Lang Lang began playing the piano at 3, and by the time he was nine-years-old, he was already kicked out of Beijin’s Central Conservatory of Music for an apparent lack of talent.

Growing up, he faced intense pressure from his parents about being focused and entering competitions. As a kid, he ended up giving up his favourite sport (basketball) and other activities because it was too harsh on his hands.

EXCLUSIVE: The Weinstein Company pulled off a coup at their Sunday night AFI premiere of My Week With Marilyn with a pre-screening recital from Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang playing composer Alexander Desplat’s “Marilyn’s Theme” before he was literally whisked away by police escort to his anticipated solo concert the same night at Disney Hall.

Not even a very unseasonable nor’easter could keep almost 800 classical piano devotees from packing Sanders Theatre on the afternoon of Oct. 29.

The reason? Superstar Lang Lang was in the house — not to perform (that would happen the day after, at Boston’s Symphony Hall), but to teach. Or, as he put it soon after he hit the stage, to “engage in a heart-to-heart conversation through music.”

Lang Lang will play “Marilyn’s Theme” from “My Week with Marilyn” before the film screens at AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Sunday.

At the top of this week’s Specialist Classical Chart is Lang Lang with his homage to Liszt, 'My Piano Hero', hailed by Gramophone's Bryce Morrison as evidence of 'a major talent already moving in new and enlightening directions'. He pushes last week's leader - Nicola Benedetti with her album of Italian Baroque music, ‘Italia’ - to number 2.

A weekend to remember!