SEATTLE — The Seattle Symphony has initiated a new chapter with the appointment of Grammy- and Emmy-winning Xian Zhang, 52, as the first female music director in the orchestra’s 65-year history. The Chinese-American conductor’s long-term collaboration with the ensemble started with her debut at Benaroya Hall in 2008. In advance of her inaugural Seattle season, which begn with an opening-night gala concert Sept. 13, Zhang talked about her musical life and plans for the Seattle Symphony.
Erica Miner: After the Cultural Revolution, your father hand-built a piano for you when you were a child. Was becoming a musician pre-ordained?
Xian Zhang: It did feel pre-arranged (laughs). I’m very fortunate my parents wished me to do something I loved but also could do well. I don’t think I complained when I was a child about practicing piano. Or the switch from piano to conducting. I was only 16 when I played piano for choir rehearsals, which my teacher was conducting. She thought my hands were too small to major in piano at the conservatory, but my good ear and perfect pitch were my strength. Since the conservatory wasn’t accepting ear-training students that year, my teacher instead prepared me to audition for the conducting department. I really didn’t expect it. It just came about naturally.
EM: After that, you suddenly found yourself conducting Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at the Central Opera House in Beijing.
XZ: My teacher gave me this big chance, dumped the whole general rehearsal of Marriage of Figaro on me. I was just a young pianist, barely 20, and had never conducted an orchestra. Today if you told me, “You’re conducting The Marriage of Figaro tomorrow,” I would need time to prepare. But back then it was “sink or swim.” (Laughs.) I remember as a student, being on the bus with the chorus and people from the conservatory, that nervous feeling in my stomach, that nausea. Before that I’d only conducted choirs, never such a big group. I was thinking, in 20 minutes I’m going to be conducting them. I felt so self-conscious. Eventually I did two shows, my debut. A lot of conductors came out of that type of emergency. As they say, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.
EM: You’ve said your journey with the Seattle Symphony will “dive into music that challenges us, connects us and opens doors to bold, new perspectives.” Could you elaborate?
XZ: When I was announced as Seattle’s new music director a year ago, Raff (Wilson, VP of Artistic Planning) and I worked out this new model called “artist in focus.” One of these artists, Steve Mackey, is a fantastic composer. For the season finale in Seattle, I’m doing his piece, RIOT, for chorus, orchestra, mezzo-soprano, and Steve on electric guitar, which will be put together with Beethoven’s Ninth. It’s the kind of challenge you mentioned.
We do the Ninth about every two years. This time, it will be paired with a new, unusual piece that also features artists in focus. The other artist we are featuring is Gabriel Cabezas, a young cellist who is part of a quartet that were award winners at Sphinx, an organization in Detroit that promotes less-represented young musicians. It’s important to me, beyond the artistic aspect, to bring such unusual, refreshing, diverse guests to Seattle. A great way to build a season.
EM: Letters for the Future, your 2022 Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra and the innovative string trio Time for Three, is astonishing.
XZ: Did you like their singing at the beginning? I loved it. They call themselves “the garage band of classical music.” Youthful, energetic. Great human beings, great players, very sincere with people who work with them. That album included Contact by Kevin Puts, which was commissioned by Philly, San Francisco, and other orchestras in 2020 but canceled because of the pandemic. We were due to record it at Verizon Hall [now Marian Anderson Hall] in Philadelphia right after the pandemic, but everything was locked down, and we had no place to rehearse.
A month before the recording, Kevin said, “How are you going to rehearse this? We have no space to meet.” I had just bought a house in New Jersey. I said, “Come to my house. It’s pretty empty, but there’s a piano!” I’ll never forget how we rehearsed that day, like five hours. The guys had never played the piece together. Probably one of the hardest multiple solo concerto pieces I’ve ever done. Kevin’s Bulgarian background inspired a multiple rhythmical pattern in the last movement, eleven beats in each bar. Really tricky. It took me a long time to study that score.
EM: What other engagements are you looking forward to this season?
XZ: Mahler 7 in Seattle. Tosca in Helsinki. And especially returning to the New York Philharmonic, after a long hiatus. I was their associate conductor for years, in my “growing days,” observing and learning from other people and with my own conducting. I can’t wait to go back. Then two trips to Asia: the first in May, for the NCPA, China National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra. (NCPA has named Zhang as its principal guest conductor, effective with the September launch of the 2025-26 season, a significant milestone of the decade-long collaboration between the NCPA and Zhang.) And July another orchestra in Beijing. I’ll revisit the Philadelphia and St. Louis orchestras, and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic on my return to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, March 2026.
EM: You’ve conducted two productions at the Met: your 2024 debut, Madama Butterfly, and your recent Tosca. Do you feel equally at home with symphony and opera?
XZ: I love both. When opera happens, when everything goes well, it’s fantastic. Such a large force coming together, so rewarding to be playing, singing, or conducting. Symphony onstage is different. The conductor has more control over the material. An opera conductor needs to follow well. In symphony the conductor is the main drive, the person who decides. It’s more controlled, but you may not get to the level of being as extraordinary as in opera when you have other people adding to it. The levels of quality can vary vastly in opera. The chances are much higher of being really great, but also the opposite. In symphony it’s more stable, more predictable. In opera, symphonic conductors who are used to being in control must be flexible enough to follow singers. But I feel being able to do both is a blessing. If I can do one production a season, I would feel very happy.
