Xian Zhang
Music Director
The Jaqua Foundation Chair
2026/7 sees GRAMMY® and Emmy Award-winning conductor Xian Zhang embark on her second season as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony and her eleventh season as Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony. She was also recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing, and serves as Conductor Emeritus of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, having been their Music Director from 2009-2016.
Her Deutsche Grammophon recording of works by Jennifer Higdon and Kevin Puts with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Time For Three won GRAMMY® awards in 2022 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Instrumental Solo, and her two mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards were for the New Jersey Symphony’s concert films made during the pandemic. Her first recording for Seattle Symphony Media, an album of orchestral works by the Chinese-French composer Qigang Chen, was released in August 2026.
2026/27 guest-conducting highlights include the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony and Sao Paulo Symphony. In Europe, Zhang will be appearing with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, RSB Berlin and the Orchestre national de Belgique.
Other recent highlights have included return visits to The Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Montreal Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic which included a performance at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Zhang’s recent opera credits include Madama Butterfly and Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Tosca for the Finnish National Opera.
Zhang previously served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the first female conductor to hold a titled role with a BBC orchestra. She was also the first woman to hold a Music Director position with a major Italian orchestra, and the first woman to serve as Music Director of a major symphony orchestra on the US west coast.
Zhang originally won a place to study piano, and subsequently conducting, at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She won first prize in the Maazel-Vilar Conducting Competition in 2002 and was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Conductor, subsequently becoming their Associate Conductor and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair. In 2023, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by The Juilliard School and in 2026 was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.