He likes his cookies chocolate chip, and his wine Oregon pinot noir.
And when it comes to music, LeBron James has a thing for Beethoven.
In fact, the Sixers’ new No. 23 has had bit of a first-hand experience with classical music. He once took some quick instruction from Curtis Institute of Music alum Lang Lang before the two broke into a four-hand duet — brief, random, and (intentionally) atonal.
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Lang Lang called the light-hearted 2014 collaboration a “piano dunk.”
Beethoven has a particular role in Jame’s routine, he explained in an interview with The Shop. He gets to games hours early and goes to the weight room, where he listens to hip-hop.
“And then when I leave the weight room, I gotta calm down and that’s why I’m listening to, like, more like old school jazz or I listen to a lot of, like, Beethoven…” he said on the talk show in 2022. “I like classical music, too.”
Taking its cue from James’s classical leanings, WRTI-FM (90.1) has quickly assembled some music especially for him.
“We thought we would create something Philadelphia-specific that we could put out as his new pre-game playlist as the jazz and classical station here,” said WRTI classical program director Zev Kane.
Jazz cuts to make the list include “Smilin’ Billy Suite: Part II” by South Philadelphia’s Heath Brothers and Philadelphia organist Shirley Scott in “Soul Shoutin’.”
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On the classical side: Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, because of its place as “a dazzling showcase of energy, elegance, and the unmistakable Philadelphia Sound,” the playlist text says.
Marian Anderson in “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” is included because, well, she’s Marian Anderson and this is Philadelphia.
The Barber Violin Concerto is on the list, since the third movement’s “breathless finale takes off with the speed of a full-court chase-down block.”
Kane says he believes there are characteristics shared by music and sports that could act as an onramp into music for classical newbies.
“I think playing music at an extremely high level and playing sports at that level — I think there are parallels: the need to train mind and body, the practice, the repetition, the heat of the moment, the debate over greatness, and the thrill of convening to see that spectacle together.”
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