Wall Street Journal: Zhang ‘aims to engage’
The Wall Street Journal writes:
The New York area’s only maestra takes the podium this week, but don’t look for her in a Manhattan concert hall.
While Xian Zhang doesn’t officially start her historic role as music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra until the 2016-17 season, she offers a sneak preview this Thursday through Sunday, when she conducts a program of Tchaikovsky and Barber at three venues across the state. They include the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre and the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.
At a time when classical-music organizations world-wide struggle with dwindling audiences and a hard-to-shake Eurocentric image, New Jersey’s symphony, which plays in six different venues statewide, has the added challenge of operating in the shadow of one of the world’s cultural capitals.
Ms. Zhang’s appointment last November to music director makes her the first woman, and Asian-American, to hold the post in the orchestra’s 94-year history. The move reflects the organization’s commitment to build bridges to new audiences, while showcasing a still-rising star.
“She’s shown an incredible mastery and confidence over a pretty big swath of repertoire,” said Bart Feller, a flutist in the orchestra who was on the search committee that chose her. “She’s a little bit on the short side but boy, when she’s on that podium, there’s nothing small about her. She’s larger than life in the best possible way. She has this magnetic energy which she sends right to us.”
The 42-year-old conductor from Dandong, China, said she first learned to play music on a piano her father built, since instruments were widely destroyed as part of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. After training at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, she made her conducting debut at age 20. Her career took flight in 2002, after she shared the first prize of the inaugural Maazel/Vilar Conductors’ Competition and subsequently earned an assistant conductor slot with the New York Philharmonic.
She currently holds the post of music director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, in Italy, and in December was named principal guest conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She is the first woman in both of those roles.
In a Skype interview from Milan last week, Ms. Zhang said getting the BBC and New Jersey jobs back to back allows her to settle in and build deeper musical relationships.
“When I know the people, then I can focus a bit more on music-making,” she said. “Working with different orchestras every day is difficult. You get distracted and don’t give 100%.”
In New Jersey, she said, her priority is “to help shorten the distance” between audiences and musicians.
“If you go to well-played, high-level concerts where you see only the back of the conductor and people wearing black, it’s not interesting,” she said. “So it’s all about finding that connection with people…on a human level.”
To foster that connection, the orchestra has pivoted toward audience-participation and outreach projects like meet-and-greet receptions and #OrchestraYou, in which patrons can bring instruments to a concert and perform beside symphony musicians in the lobby afterward.
Ms. Zhang also plans to boost the number of casual-format concerts and film screenings with orchestral accompaniment (Disney’s “Fantasia” is high on her wish list), as well as late-night programs, “to encourage young people to go out.”
Before her four-year contract begins in the fall, Ms. Zhang will conduct the concerts this weekend. Though her music programs so far have veered little from core romantic masterworks, orchestra officials see her potential impact in other ways.
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Check out what NJSO audiences have said about Xian; this week's concertgoers will have a chance to share their thoughts on the NJSO's next music director on Concert Coda after the performance.