On this day 43 years ago, on October 7, 1982 (August 21, 1982 lunar calendar), internationally renowned pianist Li Yundi was born. Li Yundi (YUNDI), born on October 7, 1982 in Chongqing, China, is an internationally renowned pianist, member of the Chinese Music Association, and member of the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Political Consultative Conference. In 2000, Li Yundi won the championship of the Chopin International Piano Competition, known as the "Music Olympiad" and "Piano Nobel Prize", becoming the youngest winner of the Xiao Saijin Award in history and the first and only Chinese to win this honor. In 2001, he made his debut on the Spring Festival Gala stage to play for hundreds of millions of audiences; in the same year, he signed a contract with Universal DG Records as the first Chinese pianist and started a concert world tour. In 2003, the album "Li Yundi List" won the German Classic Echo Award and the New York Times Record of the Year Award. In 2006, he recorded a live concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall with great success. In 2010, he won the Polish "Glory Art" Cultural Medal and the world's first "Chopin Passport". In 2013 and 2014, he held more than 30 concert tours in China every year for two consecutive years, setting a milestone in the Chinese piano concert tour. In 2015, he was invited to serve as a judge of the 17th Chopin International Piano Competition, becoming the youngest judge in the history of the event. So far, Li Yundi has released 14 classical albums around the world, and his concerts are all over the world's famous concert halls, music festivals and art festivals. His elegant and exquisite performances have won high praise from top orchestras, conductors and music critics around the world. The British BBC praised him as "a super piano superstar from China". Early Experience Li Yundi was born in Dadukou District, Chongqing on October 7, 1982. The name used on the birth certificate is Li Xi. At the age of 3, he was renamed Li Xixi, and at the age of 5, he was officially changed to Li Yundi. In 1986, he entered the accordion class of Chongqing Children's Palace and studied under teacher Tan Jianming. The following year, with his extremely high musical talent and expressiveness, he successfully passed the fifth-level examination of accordion. In March 1987, Li Yundi participated in the Sichuan Provincial Children's Accordion Competition and won the first place with his naive "Flowers and Teenagers". This was the first first first place in his life. In 1989, Li Yundi began to learn piano. In 1991, he studied under Dan Zhaoyi. In 1994, Li Yundi participated in the "Wapu Cup" National Children's Piano Competition and won the first place. In the same year, he was admitted to the High School Affiliated to Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and then he transferred to Shenzhen Art School with Professor Dan. In 1995, Li Yundi was selected to participate in the Stravinsky International Piano Competition in the United States and won the third place; in the same year, he transferred to Shenzhen Art School with Professor Dan. And was invited to participate in the Shenzhen Children's Art Troupe and toured Europe for the first time. In 1997, Li Yundi won the first place in the group of "Yellow River Concerto", the highest group of the first China Piano Works (Hong Kong) Competition. Extended reading: Li Yundi and Lang Lang: Same genius with different endings Extended reading: Li Yundi and Lang Lang: Same genius with different endings In the eyes of the public, they are both gifted "piano princes", but as long as you know a little about the two, you will find that they are very different from their personality experiences to playing styles. Lang Lang's performances are passionate and almost insane; while Li Yundi is very introverted and feminine, which also fits the characters of the two. One is like fire and the other is like water, just like the little fish and flowers in Gu Long's pen. ( (Left: Li Yundi, right: Lang Lang) Lang Lang's career in the rivers and lakes is as carefree as a duck to water; Li Yundi is cautious at all times, and the road to climb is still difficult. In 2010, the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth, Chopin's native Poland decided to award the highest art prize to a Chinese piano genius, Li Yundi, who is famous all over the world for playing Chopin and is known as the "successor of the romantic piano master". When it comes to Li Yundi, it is natural to think of another Oriental piano genius, Lang Lang, who is also respected in the West. Both are Chinese, both born in 1982, both won the crown at the International Piano Competition, and both signed with the recording giant Deutsche Record (DG). At first glance, they look like twins who were separated after birth. Their paths to fame are similar but different, and today's situation is even more different. The geniuses both came from teenagers. Li Yundi and Lang Lang are basically the products of the "piano craze" that swept China in the 1980s. From television to classical music, the end of the "Cultural Revolution" inspired Chinese interest in all things Western. Lang Lang learned to use a Chinese-made piano that cost half of his family's annual income. Dragging his family, he left his hometown in northeastern China to learn piano in Beijing with a Chinese teacher who had studied in Europe. At the age of 13, he won the Tchaikov Broken Foundation Young Musician Competition, and his musical career in Asia began. Li Yundi, on the other hand, learned piano after learning the accordion at the age of seven. He also left his hometown in Sichuan with his family and went to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone to learn piano. There were enough financial conditions for him, otherwise he would not have been able to embark on the piano road. Interestingly, their life paths to the West were not the same. In 1999, at the age of 17, Lang Lang played Tchaikovsky's "First Piano Concerto" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the star concert of the Lavenia Music Festival in Chicago. Before the opening, the famous artist Stern introduced Lang Lang to the audience: "You will hear the most beautiful voice in the world from this young Chinese boy." Sure enough, when the last music note was played, the audience stood up and cheered. More importantly for Lang Lang, around 2 a.m. that day, after a five-hour concert, Rabin Mehta asked him at the party if he could "play something else, like Bach's Gothenburg Variations." "So, at 2:30 a.m., we went back to the concert hall," Lang Lang recalled. "I played from memory. The next day, when the legend spread, I was like holding a rocket, and my career took off." Li Yundi made his fortune only a year later than Lang Lang. In 2000, Li Yundi, who had already won third place in the Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht the previous year, hesitated to participate in the Warsaw Chopin International Music Competition. With the mentality of "expanding knowledge" and "playing for the audience rather than for the judges", he became the first pianist to win the Chopin International Music Competition Gold Medal in 15 years. Signing with DG may be the last thing the two men have experienced in similar circumstances. While Lang Lang attends 120 concerts and recitals a year, climbing the ladder of celebrity relationships, Li Yundi chose a more low-key and deliberate path, performing for only half a year, and spending the rest of his time learning the piano with his teacher Ali Vardy, living a student life in Hanover. Although Xiaoyuer and Hua Wuque are both gifted "piano princes" in the eyes of the public, as long as you get to know them a little, you will find that they are very different from each other in terms of personality experience and playing style. Lang Lang's performance is full of passion and almost madness; while Li Yundi is very restrained and feminine, which also fits the characters of the two people. One is like fire and the other is like water, just like the little fish and Hua Wuque in Gulong's pen. With his upright hairstyle, bold clothes, and gorgeous performances, Lang Lang sometimes looks less like a classical musician and more like a rock star. He has signed with more than a dozen well-known brands, endorsements are ubiquitous, he has released a solo album, an autobiography... In the eyes of many critics, Lang Lang is always so "unprofessional", and he always spends his time in many fields other than music. It is Lang Lang's strength to excel at performance, whether on stage or in interviews. His characteristics upend the traditional impression of Chinese people as "shy and modest". A reporter from the British authoritative media "Financial Times" wrote this report after interviewing Lang Lang Lang: "His incessant promotion of himself and his tireless display of a string of celebrity names soon seemed less attractive than beef with asparagus in oyster sauce (reporter and Lang Lang chat over dinner). "Conductors who have worked with Lang Lang have publicly described him as a shallow musician, and The New York Times has criticized his playing as" often incoherent, capricious, flippant and crude. "By contrast, Western critics have been much more polite to Li Yundi. The most vehement criticism of Li Yundi is that he looks" detached "on stage. Li Yundi himself admits this:" When I go on stage to face the audience, my emotions actually enter the piano. "At each solo session, Li Yundi hurries out of the concert hall stage, bows and smiles quickly in the direction of the audience, and his tuxedo barely touches the floor. He has already plunged into Chopin's four scherzos. Li Yundi's talent and unique temperament, as well as the stage style of both an unrestrained dancer and a melancholy poet in his performance, are somewhat similar to Chopin. In this regard, Li Yundi explained: "I think what you see is mostly my state of contemplation and concentration on stage. In fact, I also love to talk under the stage." If you look at the appearance alone, Li Yundi really has the potential to become a mass star more than Lang Lang Lang, and his other loud nickname is "Takuya Kimura of the piano world". Mr. Li's former employer, DG, also tried to market him in this way. On the superbly played Chopard and Liszt records, Li Yundi wears heavy makeup, poses for narcissism, and has a male and female pose imposed on him. Still, Li Yundi's heart is still the same person he used to be: clumsy, thin, with a baseball cap on his tousled hair. An artistic youth intoxicated in his own world. He likes to drink wine, listen to HI-FI jazz, play table tennis, and travel to airports, hotels and concert halls around the world every day. "Travel has become a part of my life," he said. When the media linked him to the Japanese superstar, he flatly admitted: "I don't know who Takuya Kimura is at all." Most of the time, Lang Lang and Li Yundi were reluctant to talk about each other, saying that they had not seen each other's performances, which meant that "Wang does not see Wang". Lang Lang once said that "Li Yundi's career is not big enough," adding, "I hope he has a great future." Then he softened his words slightly, implying criticism of Li Yundi: "If you are still young and only play a few songs, one day you will disappear because of it." Of course, in Lang Lang's eyes, Li Yundi's territory is indeed much "smaller". Lang Lang's career is now booming, and his appearance at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games has made him a household name. The ballad that Lang Lang played at the opening ceremony, although criticized by some foreign music critics as shallow and vulgar in terms of artistic attainments, did not prevent him from becoming a "gold king" in the art world in China and even the world. Forbes "2009 China Celebrity List" said that his annual income reached 91 million yuan, second only to Yao Ming and Liu Xiang. It is quite significant that in 2008, when Lang Lang was shining brightly, Li Yundi was terminated by DG. For music lovers, this relief is really a kind of sadness. But Li Yundi still shows his inherent calmness: "Pianists should be gradual, have time to study, study, live a good life, and broaden our hearts. I have a long-term plan for my career, so I don't mind taking my time, I still have a long way to go." Yes, Li Yundi's road continues. Not long ago, he launched his first album after joining EMI, and the "Complete Chopin" solo concert held at the National Center for the Performing Arts on May 15 was also an unprecedented success. Even many audience members would rather buy standing tickets to enjoy it. In their eyes, Li Yundi's performance has always maintained a pure land compared to Lang Lang's crowd-pleasing but unartistic style. In this king's PK, Li Yundi is still not out. He and Lang Lang are like bright twin constellations, shining brightly in the Chinese artistic sky.