Born in Dandong, China, Ms Zhang made her professional conducting debut at the age of 20 in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Central Opera House in Beijing. She trained at Beijing's Central Conservatory, earning both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, and served one year on its conducting faculty before moving to the United States in 1998. Xian Zhang ended her three year tenure as the New York Philharmonic's Associate Conductor (and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair), a post she held since 2005 after serving as Assistant Conductor for one year. She maintains a regular relationship with the orchestra and returns in 2009/10 for a subscription week. In 2009/10 she will become Music Director of La Verdi (the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi). Xian Zhang's conducting is attracting ever increasing attention throughout the world. In North America, the 2008/09 season includes her debuts with Chicago Symphony, Toronto and Indianapolis and a return visit to Los Angeles Philharmonic following her sensational debut with them in August 2007. In Europe, Xian Zhang continues to be an annual guest with the London Symphony Orchestra and other forthcoming engagements include Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg, SWR Stuttgart Radio and Orchestre National de Belgique. In Summer 2008, she returned to Aspen Festival and conducted Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Bregenz Festival: Summer 2009 sees her make her debut at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo alongside Christoph Eschenbach and Michael Tilson Thomas. She will also conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in the same month. She became the first female maestro to conduct the Staatskapelle Dresden, in a New Year concert in January 2008, in their main hall to critical acclaim. Xian Zhang incorporates Chinese compositions into her concert planning and this year has included Huang Ruo's Fanfare with NYPO and works by Chen Yi (Momentum and Si Ji). In May 2008 she completed a major 6 concert tour to China with the Orchestra of the Juilliard School on which Chen Yi's Ge Xu was performed in Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou. An enthusiastic opera conductor, Xian Zhang made a sensational debut with La Bohème for English National Opera in spring 2007 and will conduct Turandot in Beijing in May 2009.