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It is not often that a performance at the New York Philharmonic generates the buzz that attended Wednesday night’s premiere of Tan Dun’s Piano Concerto. Mr. Tan, whose concert works combine Asian elements with the avant-garde, became an international celebrity when his ferociously propulsive film score for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” earned him an Academy Award in 2001.

For his career-making performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Ravinia festival near Chicago, Lang Lang said he imagined a Michael Jordan slam dunk while pounding the opening chords and a Tiger Woods drive while rippling the octave runs.

Lang Lang may be known for his pyrotechnic performances of the great piano pieces of the 19th century, but he is truly a musician of today.

The 25-year-old is as at home on the Internet as he is in the world's great concert halls. He's appeared as a cartoon "avatar" in the online virtual world Second Life, and he's serenaded the Muppets on Sesame Street. He's a regular on YouTube, and he soloed with Herbie Hancock on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue during the recent Grammy Awards telecast.

LANG LANG: THE MAGIC OF LANG LANG. There's nothing worse than a classical music compilation disc — a trite bag of audience-friendly classical and pop sing-along tunes only meant to put money in a record label's pocket. But here's an exception to the rule. Lang Lang, the 25-year-old Chinese Herculean pianist taking the concert world by storm, imparts his flowing-over-the-edge enthusiasm — the abundance of notes are no match for his animated, speedy touch — on this Deutsche Grammophon release. These overly Romantic and popular offerings (such as Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.

Anyone who has ever been held in the thrall of a good storyteller can have an inkling of what it's like to hear 25-year-old Chinese piano superstar Lang Lang in concert.

He tells stories in music – extravagant fables that frequently strain the realm of the possible. Audiences, like the sold-out house at Roy Thomson Hall on Saturday night, hang on his every note.

Lang Lang's dazzling exertions on the keyboard are repaid in adoring ovations, shouts of praise and extravagant bouquets of flowers.

Lang Lang began studying piano when he was three and gave his first public recital five years later.

The child prodigy grew into a Grammy-nominated virtuoso who's been electrifying audiences and changing the landscape of classical music since his international breakout a decade ago.

Now 25, Lang Lang has been dubbed "the Tiger Woods of pianists."

His official bio says The New York Times called him the "hottest artist on the classical music planet."

Chinese pianist Lang Lang and great violinist Itzhak Perlman will perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as part of its 2008-2009 season.

Lang Lang, whose concerts in Toronto this spring sold out, will participate in a week-long residency with the TSO that will include several community engagements, according to TSO music director Peter Oundjian, who on Monday released details of the coming season.

Among Lang Lang's performances will be the Canadian premiere of Tan Dun's Piano Concerto with the TSO.

Those with tickets for the return of the phenomenal Chinese pianist Lang Lang to the NCH next Wednesday will have had their appetite whetted by Melvyn Bragg's enthralling profile of the artist on the South Bank Show last Sunday...

Lang Lang is having a nap. He's just arrived in chilly Zaragoza from Berlin - a two hour-flight to Barcelona followed by a three-hour drive - and is due to play a concert at the city's gleaming new hall in a couple hours...

Don't you just love a child genius? Okay, perhaps not, but you can't help but admire the extraordinary talent of Lang Lang, the virtuoso pianist who's already taken the world by storm at the age of just 25...