Around the Music Festival

The Seattle Symphony Orchestra has announced the appointment of Chinese-American conductor Xian Zhang to the vacant position of Music Director. She will serve a five-year term. Her predecessor, Thomas Dausgaard, was abruptly dismissed by the orchestra in 2021.

Zhang was born in Dandong, China in 1973 and is 51 years old. She grew up in a musical family and studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing before moving to the United States in 1998 to study at the University of Cincinnati.

She was discovered in a conducting competition presided over by Lorin Maazel and has served as Maazel’s assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic since 2005. She then became Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi di Milano from 2009 to 2016.

She then served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (2016-2018), and in 2017 led the orchestra in a guest appearance at the Proms in London, becoming the first female conductor to appear at a music festival. since 2016, she has served as Music Director of the Newark-based New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

PHOTO：Seattle Symphony Orchestra　/　Carlin Ma