He is a Chinese superstar, a piano genius who has sold millions of albums worldwide. Lang Lang has also used his fame and fortune to help state schools around the world that lack music, warning at a 2019 awards ceremony in London that such lessons had become “a real challenge” for children in the most disadvantaged communities.

Now he is bringing music to British state schools in an ambitious project that will set up modern “piano labs” in needy schools across the nation. Each lab will have 20 to 30 keyboards. The plan is inspired by his programmes in the US and China, in which he has invested tens of millions of pounds.

In the US, he has set up piano labs in 86 schools, giving 70,000 kids access to keyboards. In China, he has installed them in 104 schools, enabling 110,000 children to make music. This is primarily for pupils aged seven to 12.

The first UK school to benefit is the Winns primary school in Waltham Forest, London’s 12th poorest area. It will receive 30 keyboards within the next few weeks. Every lab is accompanied by a curriculum created by the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto and Lang Lang, with ongoing teacher-training, financial support, and headphones, allowing group piano classes.

Asked what inspired him to support UK schools, Lang told the reporter: “We were able to identify many similarities between state schools in the UK and public schools in the US in terms of the way access to music and arts can be extremely limited when budgets are cut…I was so surprised by how music classes are never guaranteed. The schools and teachers are incredible, and are so dedicated to providing their students with everything they can. But it shocked me how access to music education can be so limited.”

His charity quotes the Greek philosopher Aristotle: “Music has the power of producing a certain effect on the moral character of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.”

Lang Lang said: “When I visit our partner schools and see the joy on the students’ faces or hear from our teachers about the progress students are making, I’m reminded of why we created this programme—to give children an opportunity to discover what they’re capable of achieving and to find their voices through music.”

When I was in the fifth grade, my teachers first discovered that I could not even read the first grade books. They didn’t think this kind of problem could happen to me since my father was a famous scientist. My parents sent me to experts, trying to find out what the problem was. My IQ was high, but I had severe problems in learning. They discovered that I was dyslexic (诵读困难的). I was lucky that my parents cared enough to find a way out for me.

When my parents went to Ford Country Day School and sat down with Brent, a teacher in the school, he agreed to help without thinking twice. My family was not rich and I was allowed to go to school free of charge because my mother drove some students to school in the morning in her car. I do know, however, without Brent reaching out to my family, my life would have taken a turn for the worst. Brent and my parents decided to have me retake the fifth grade in the next school year.

I was afraid of going to school with my difficulties in learning, but Brent’s kind and loving support helped me slowly learn to grow and overcome my learning disability. Ford Country Day School has become the most important turning point in my life. The foundation that Brent gave me has in many ways set my direction in life.

I went to Japan to live with my brother for one year right out of Ford Country Day School. I was in an international school in Tokyo. If I had not had the experience in Ford Country Day School, I would not have been able to survive in Japan. I count myself as one of the truly lucky people having been touched by Brent’s caring and love.

Nearly every family trip we went on when I was a kid was spent flying across the plane from Boston to Rio de Janeiro, and then driving to the tiny town where my grandparents grew up in Minas Gerais. There you’ll find rolling hills as far as you can see. That’s where my cousins live, work and grow coffee. That trek — a five-hour flight, then an eight-hour flight, and then a road trip — was always just the lead-up to the last leg of the journey.

I here we’d drink the coffee out of little glass cups and get to catching up by the wood stove. My brother and I would sometimes wander out while the adults were talking. Coffee in Minas Gerais is usually served sickly sweet, but never with milk, and never iced, even in the middle of summer.

Most of the highest-quality beans in Minas Gerais are sold abroad. When I was a kid especially, there wasn’t really a coffee culture in Brazil the way there is in New York or Boston.

But in college, I worked at a cafe. There I was taught to notice all those things I’d never learned about coffee, even though I’d seen the coffee fruit on the trees and watched firsthand as my cousins spread the fruit onto big, wavy multicolored sheets under the sun to dry.

I learned then that my cousins’ process for preparing coffee was just one of many ways to do it — you could dry it in the sun or in a big machine, or it could be fermented, or washed first. All these methods could change the way the coffee tasted. I also learned that different regions have different taste profiles. I learned to think about tasting coffee as playing a word-association game. What does it make you think of? What memory comes up for you?

Today when I get up and make my first cup of coffee, I do it like performing a sacred ritual. I know that those beans traveled far, and were cared for. They were grown, and watered, and dried, and then roasted. Someone probably lost sleep over them when frost was in the forecast. And when I take my first sip, I make sure to let my brain go blank, listen to the coffee and see where it takes me.