Until this week, Lang Lang hadn’t stepped onto the stage of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall since before the pandemic. The $150m transformation of its acoustics, completed in 2022, struck him the instant he played a note.

“The sound is so much more vibrant,” the pianist tells Limelight. “The new panels around the hall – those wavy wooden panels – they’ve really changed the whole feeling and the entire acoustic. It was quite a ‘dry’ concert hall before, but this time, you go in and it’s almost like the [Amsterdam] Concertgebouw. You get lots of vibration but not echo. So, much better for making music on stage. And it all looks beautiful.”

Lang Lang in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, 18 June 2025. Photo © Jay Patel

Lang Lang performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on 18 June, showcasing Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2. By way of encore, he fired off a cheeky take on Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? from the Walt Disney short Three Little Pigs.

“It was a really exciting performance,” Lang Lang says. “Everybody played their best. The balance was sensational – very...