Ground-breaking hire for music director of Seattle Symphony, filling job open for almost 3 years

She’s known for breaking barriers in the music world. Xian Zhang was hired Thursday as music director of the Seattle Symphony, becoming the first woman conductor to head a major West Coast orchestra and filling a post that had been vacant since January 2022.

The orchestra said Zhang agreed to a five-year contract starting in 2025-26. She became the music director designate for the upcoming season because she was committed to her current job at the New Jersey Symphony.

“Today we are witnessing history being made with the appointment of Zhang,” Seattle Symphony President & CEO Krishna Thiagarajan said. “Her passionate musicianship is inspiring, her technique is clear and precise and the resulting performances captivate our audiences in heart and soul.”

Zhang is a Grammy Award winner and conducted with the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

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She is a long-term collaborator with the Seattle Symphony, debuting at Benaroya Hall in 2008.

“I was kind of surprised,” Zhang said of hearing the news. “I was completely not prepared to hear such good news.”

Thiagarajan said he was impressed by “the energy and the connection between her and the orchestra that also translated to the audience.”

Zhang replaces music director Thomas Dausgaard, who had abruptly stepped down from his post, midway through his third season. There were accusations of a difficult relationship with symphony managers and a challenging work environment.

“My decision to step away at this moment when we’ve realized such collective artistic success is a result of these pandemic times, which centers the question for us all: how do we value our lives?” Dausgaard said in a news release from 2022. “I have enjoyed immensely my life with the Seattle Symphony, and it is time for me to move on.”

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The length of time that it took to hire Zhang as Dausgaard’s replacement was due in part because of the complexity of candidate qualifications and how far top-tier conductors are booked out.

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

“With each visit, I realized the depth and the understanding of the music from the musicians,” she said. “It felt in a way musically speaking that we’re really on the same page and speaking the same language.”

Zhang is committed to up to 14 weeks annually with Seattle and eight with New Jersey, where she lives.

Material from The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.