Xian Zhang

Xian Zhang currently serves as Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony and will become the Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony in 2020. She also holds the post of Conductor Emeritus of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, following a hugely successful period from 2009-2016 as Music Director. She has previously served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, becoming the first female conductor to hold a titled role with a BBC orchestra.

The acclaim Ms. Zhang has been receiving for her work in New Jersey has resulted in a strong North American career, with upcoming engagements in Chicago, Dallas, Baltimore, Montreal, Ottawa (NAC), Cincinnati, Houston and Minnesota. In August 2019 she returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic to conduct the world premiere of a work by Caroline Shaw and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Ms. Zhang’s 2019-20 European engagements include London (with both the Philharmonia in Mahler’s The Song of the Earth, and the English Chamber Orchestra in a program of Thomas Adès, Richard Strauss and Ravel), Paris (in the Philharmonie with Orchestre National de Lyon in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France as part of La Folle Journée festival in Nantes), and Belgium (returning to work with the National Orchestra of Belgium). She will also make her debut with MDR Leipzig.

Ms. Zhang’s previous opera engagements include Nabucco with Welsh National Opera, Otello at Savonlinna Festival, La traviata for Den Norske Opera (Oslo), La bohème for English National Opera and The Force of Destiny with Washington National Opera. She will lead a production of Rigoletto for the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing in July 2020. She will make her debut with Santa Fe Opera in August 2020.

In 2002 Ms. Zhang won first prize in the Maazel-Vilar Conductor's Competition. She was appointed as the New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Conductor in 2002, subsequently becoming their Associate Conductor and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair.