| By Patrick Cole
NEW YORK, USA (Bloomberg) — After a massive earthquake rocked Haiti in January, concert pianist Lang Lang sent a text message to Wyclef Jean asking if the singer’s friends and relatives in the Caribbean country were safe.
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| Wyclef Jean |
The Chinese superstar and the Haitian-born hip-hop artist who rose to fame with the Fugees had met a month earlier in Oslo at a concert honoring US President Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
“After the Haiti earthquake, Wyclef told me that some of his friends are dead,” Lang Lang, 27, said last week on the phone from Germany, where he was performing. “It was very emotional for us and for the Chinese people because China had an extremely large earthquake two years ago.”
On Sunday they will reunite at New York’s Carnegie Hall to raise money for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Organizers of the event, partly sponsored by luxury goods maker Montblanc North America LLC, say proceeds will benefit Haiti’s children.
Lang Lang will perform with Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, an ensemble comprising some of the world’s finest classical musicians who are 26 or younger. Christoph Eschenbach, who conducted Lang Lang’s jaw-dropping Ravinia Festival debut in 1999, will direct the program of works by Mozart, Prokofiev and Beethoven.
Then Jean, 37, will come onstage with Lang Lang to reprise the duet of Jean’s “Gunpowder” that they performed in Oslo. The song begins with a tragic narrative about the killing of a brother:
I asked my mother why do you cry?
She said your brother, he just died
Well I told him not to go outside
He said he had to fight for his country’s rights
Lang Lang, known for blazing through Tchaikovsky, said his collaboration with a hip-hop singer wouldn’t surprise fans who know his musical tastes. The 3,000 songs on his Sony digital music player include hits by Jay-Z, Usher, Eminem and Kanye West, as well as Jean.
“I always enjoy listening to hip hop and to Wyclef, and I really respect him even though we’re walking in two different musical worlds,” he said. “I remember when we were backstage in Oslo, he showed me the chords on the guitar for the song. He’s a great composer.”
Charity work has been a part of Lang Lang’s frenetic schedule since he became an international goodwill ambassador to UNICEF in 2004. In 2008, he auctioned the red Steinway piano he’d used for a Central Park concert and donated the proceeds to the American Red Cross China Earthquake fund. That year, he also launched the Lang Lang International Music Foundation Inc., which gives scholarships to young music students.
Lang Lang will appear tomorrow at the Apple Store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he’ll perform Chopin’s “Polonaise in A Flat major, Opus 53.” The piece was released this week on iTunes, and the pianist will donate the proceeds to UNICEF.
“Haiti confirmed that it’s important for musicians who are lucky to support children who aren’t so lucky,” he said. (Caribnet) |