Xian Zhang to Become Seattle Symphony’s Music Director in 2025-26 Season

Xian Zhang was hired Thursday as music director of the Seattle Symphony, becoming the first female conductor to lead a major West Coast orchestra and filling a position that has been vacant since the abrupt departure of Thomas Dausgaard in January 2022.

Zhang has agreed to a five-year contract starting in 2025-26, the orchestra said Thursday. She becomes music director this season.

She first conducted the orchestra at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall in June 2008 for a performance of Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky” and has returned several times since, including Orff’s “Carmina Burana” in 2023 and Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” in April of this year.

“With each visit, I realized the depth and understanding of the music by the musicians,” she said. “The musical sense that we were on the same page and speaking the same language was kind of like that.”

From 2016 to 2017, Zhang served as music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, he won a Grammy Award for his recording of works by Jennifer Higdon and Kevin Puts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the string trio Time for Three.

Seattle Symphony President Krishna Thiagarajan said he was impressed by “the energy and connection between her and the orchestra, which transferred to the audience.”

“She brings a new perspective to everything she conducts, while remaining true to traditional interpretations of what we would call the core repertoire,” he said. “She has a great feel for contemporary American composers, especially contemporary American composers of ethnic backgrounds, immigrant composers. She has been a champion of women in music throughout her career.”

Following long tenures under music director Gerard Schwarz (1985-2011) and Ludovic Morlot (2011-19), Dausgaard was hired in October 2017 on a four-year contract through the 2019-20 season. After Dausgaard resigned with 1 1/2 seasons remaining, he told Danish National Radio P2, “I felt threatened and unsafe going to work,” and told The New York Times, “I thought my life was too precious to live under that kind of pressure.” Orchestra representatives have denied any wrongdoing.

Jon Rosen, a lawyer who has chaired the orchestra’s board since August 2021, said Dausgaard’s chaotic departure “was certainly at least a subconscious factor” in the search for a successor.

“We all wanted someone who was very likeable, who could connect with the musicians,” he said. “I certainly wanted to learn from the experience with Thomas.”

Born in China, Zhang began playing piano at age 3, attended the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and was invited by his teacher to conduct Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” at age 19 with the China National Opera Orchestra.

She attended the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, won the Maazel/Vilar International Conductors’ Competition in 2002, and was hired as an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and later as an associate conductor. Zhang was music director of the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra from 2005-07 and of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi from 2009-16.

Last season, Seattle had 176 scheduled shows and 6,583 subscribers, selling 69.65% of its tickets, surpassing 58.94% in the 2018-19 pre-pandemic season. Revenue last season is estimated at $31.6 million, including $11.9 million from ticket sales.

Zhang has committed to 14 weeks per year in Seattle and eight in New Jersey, where she lives. Her 2024-25 season includes performances with the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Zhang returns to the Seattle Symphony for programs in March and June.

In June, she was in Brazil, where she was scheduled to conduct the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, when she received a call from Alexander Monsey, her agent at IMG Artists, saying the Seattle Symphony had offered her the job.

“I was a little surprised,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for such good news at all.”