Xian Zhang conducts at the Mostly Mozart Festival on 22 and 23 July at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The programme opens with Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s Primal Message and also features Beethoven’s Symphony 3. Saxophonist Steven Banks joins the stage for Glazunov’s Concerto for Saxophone and Ibert’s Concertino da Camera for Alto Saxophone. A champion of Primal Message, Zhang conducted the orchestral version’s premiere in 2020 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Later this summer, Zhang conducts the Orchestra of St Luke’s in the Summer Season Finale Concert at the Caramoor Center on 7 August. The all-Beethoven programme pairs Piano Concerto No. 5 (soloist Marc-André Hamelin) with Symphony No. 2, and will be recorded by WQXR for delayed broadcast.
In high demand as a guest conductor, Zhang’s 2021/22 season included subscription concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Montreal Symphony, NAC Ottawa, London Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Spanish National Orchestra. Her 2022/23 season includes returns to Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, St Louis Symphony (debut), and Seattle Symphony orchestras. Across Europe and Asia next season, Zhang returns to orchestras such as London Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille. In the opera world, she conducts Tosca at Norwegian Opera.
2022/23 will mark Xian Zhang’s seventh season as Music Director of New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a position she combines with Principal Guest Conductor of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Emeritus of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. She was previously Principal Guest Conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the first female conductor to hold a titled position across all the BBC orchestras.
Photo credit: B Ealovega
