Rayming Lan is making classical music cool again, one rockin’ piano performance at a time. Elizabeth Kerr reports
For lack of a better descriptor, 18-year-old classical pianist Rayming Lan looks like a rock star. It’s a mild spring day in Discovery Bay, still not so humid as to be uncomfortable, definitely terrace weather… and Rayming is dressed entirely in black, medium-length wavy hair still bearing orange tips from a quick-fading dye job. He’s perplexed by the persistent notion that anyone into classical music should be neat and tidy, and sporting elbow patches on their tweed jacket.
“What’s with the academic image?” begins the soft-spoken Rayming. “I mean, look at Beethoven. He drank too much, he was a mess, and just look at his hair. It looks like mine.” Fair point, and entirely accurate given classical composers were often the rock stars of their time.
For now, Rayming is neither a rock star nor a working per former though he has played at various prestige venues, and taken part in numerous events and competitions both internationally and closer to home. He just finished Year 13 at Discovery College, which he attended on a full music scholarship, and is readying for final exams before he heads off to the Hong Kong Academy for Per forming Ar ts in September to study piano per formance on yet another scholarship.
Rayming, born and bred in Hong Kong, relocated to DB from Island East with the family when he started school at DC three years ago; he’s got a younger brother at school in Western District. Besides flourishing at DC, Rayming has embraced DB, noting that the community vibe has bolstered his musicianship. “I like the overall atmosphere in DB,” he says. “Whenever I have a concert, my neighbours come out and support me but they’re truly there for the music, not just because they know me. They’re there because they love music. I think that’s great.”
Mum Yuki Wong is parked quietly on a bench next to Rayming, and she agrees that the move to DB was a good one. “We’ve always been supportive of Rayming’s choices, and we’re thrilled he can do what he likes and be good at it,” she says. “I enjoy life here, and it’s wonderful that the neighbours are so supportive. When Rayming performs, they often mention hearing such-and-such by so-and-so from the apartment.”
Rayming has been playing piano for “as long as [he] can remember,” and his academic career started in 2015 when he joined HKAPA’s Junior Music Program, where he studied under Dr Amy Sze and later with Professor Gabriel Kwok. But it wasn’t until a few years ago he really found a passion for classical music. “The reason why I came to DB and DC is that I wanted to change my environment, and view the world differently,” Rayming explains. He’s less certain of a single moment that put him on his path as he is of the general broadening of his horizons that underpinned it. “I don’t listen to music. I just play. It wasn’t until I started to listen more, and learn more about classical music culture that I had an epiphany.”
Here Rayming backtracks a bit, admitting he’s exaggerating about not listening to music. It’s more that he’s begun finding new composers and genres that have lit a fire under him.
“Recently, I started to listen to a lot of composers I didn’t like, and eventually I found the beauty in their pieces. Sergei Prokofiev is one. He’s a 20th century Russian composer whose music sounds like noise at first. Just slamming the keyboard and stuff, but eventually you start looking closer and finding the meaning behind it, the beauty behind it. That’s not the case with most music.”
Alongside Prokofiev, Rayming’s taken a shine to Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar and jazz, which he calls “the closest thing on, let’s say, the pop scale to classical for its complexity, technicality and also meaning.” Those may be pretty heady and wildly divergent influences, but Rayming cherishes the diversity, acknowledging the enormity of the musical pantheon – and that he knows only a fraction of it. “I think discovering more artists, not just classical ones, helps you in developing and maturing your craft,” he adds.
In another bit of maverick thinking, Rayming likens watching a film and watching a YouTube reel about a film to classical music and four-chord pop music. “It’s a different process of enjoyment. One instantly gets you what you want. The other takes time.”
Unsurprisingly, our conversation turns to the looming impact of AI, something Rayming’s not overly bothered about. For him, AI is a useful tool but as a creative instrument it’s missing a key ingredient – and will never learn it. “The connection between the composer and the audience,” he states flatly. “AI cannot replicate the emotion of an actual composer, which is why we listen to music.” He acknowledges that AI will continue developing, and perhaps one day it will be able to compose an emotionally rich piece, but in the end “that’s not the point of art”.
Ask Rayming what he’ll be doing in five years and he shrugs, noting he has plenty in mind but that in reality it could take some time. He’s a fan of collaborating with other artists in other media – he’s already scored a few short films for friends – and he’s had a few moments in the spotlight. Standing out in his memory are one of his first solo recitals at K11’s Steinway & Sons Gallery, and most recently a performance as featured pianist in A Late Summer Night’s Dream at S’way in Tsim Sha Tsui, par t of its Young Artist Series. Rayming enjoyed S’Way’s chic studio feel and cosy vibe – and would love to see a classical club in Hong Kong alongside other “traditional” live music venues that cater to jazz, rock and pop.
“I would love to have a place where people just go have a drink and hear some classical like they do for other types of music. It would be great to have that kind of lifestyle in Hong Kong,” says Rayming, and he’s sure it’s an attainable concept, citing today’s vintage-focused teens as future consumers of all things classic. “I think that’s what we’re lacking in classical music. In future, I hope to foster a stronger community of just enjoying music and supporting the local scene.”
Rayming’s also confident he’ll be able to make a living doing what’s he’s destined to. “What is rich, what is successful?” he boggles. “You don’t need to be the richest man on Earth to be happy. I think you just need to find meaning in your life.” Ask Rayming if he finds that meaning in any other arts – prose, photography, filmmaking – he cracks a little smile and shakes his head.
“I make music.” Can you drop a mic off a piano?