Lang was later admitted into Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music where he studied under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo. In 1993, he won the Xing Hai Cup Piano Competition in Beijing and, in 1994, got first prize at the fourth International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, Germany. In 1995, at 13 years old, he played the Op. 10 and Op. 25 études by Chopin at the Beijing Concert Hall and, the same year, got first place at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Japan, playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert broadcast by NHK Television. When 14, he was a featured soloist at the China National Symphony's inaugural concert, which was broadcast by China Central Television and attended by President Jiang Zemin. The following year he began studies with Gary Graffman and Dick Doran at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.