Prelude to an Inaugural Season with Xian Zhang

By Leilani Polk & Jim Holt

When her manager called her to tell her that she had been offered the Music Director position at the Seattle Symphony, Xian Zhang said she stood up out of her chair in surprise. “I couldn’t believe that it was happening.” 

It was mid-June, and she was enjoying some downtime in her Brazil hotel room before her performances with the São Paulo State Orchestra. She said she was in “end of season” mode; she’d closed her season with the New Jersey Symphony and was headed to tour in China after she left South America. She’d been in Seattle that April, and while she says the concerts were great — “The orchestra played the most beautiful, the most precise Appalachian Spring I’ve ever done in a live performance” — she sensed the orchestra needed more time to look over different candidates. “I did not feel any drama or any pressure. Everybody was kind of cool and laid back, very polite; nothing was rushed. So … I didn’t think much about it, and I totally did not get the hint that I was going to be the one. But it turned out to be a really wonderful surprise. I’m very happy.” 

Xian says that throughout her 17-year history with the Seattle Symphony, her performances here have always felt smooth and organic. She’s always been impressed by the orchestra and the Seattle Symphony Chorale, which she experienced during her 2008 debut conducting Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky score alongside a screening of the film.  

She returned several times over the years, conducting the orchestra’s 2020 live-streamed Opening Night Concert, then returned the following season, stepping in on short notice to replace a conductor who couldn’t get to Seattle in time due to travel restrictions. The two 2021 season-opening concerts included the premiere of then-Composer in Residence Reena Esmail’s new commission, RE|Member. “I’ve been taking it everywhere, to other orchestras.” Xian said she felt a deeper kinship with the Symphony after conducting that program. “The Seattle Symphony seems to really strive to promote new music. Young composers and soloists, conductors of diverse backgrounds, underrepresented composers of color. And that’s a value that I strongly believe in. I’ve been commissioning a lot of pieces [with New Jersey Symphony], like by DBR [Daniel Bernard Roumain]. This season in New Jersey, we started with Allison Loggins-Hull as our resident composer. I strongly believe this is something we must do as part of our contribution to society.” 

She’ll continue the orchestra’s creative contributions next season when she takes the helm as Music Director. “The Seattle Symphony is on the forefront of commissioning new pieces. This orchestra cares a lot about that. And it’s important we keep doing it. It’s our job to create opportunities for conductors as well. Performers, soloists. Whether it’s a female conductor or female composer, or a Black composer. Those are part of our social responsibilities.” 

Xian leads her first concerts as the Seattle Symphony’s Music Director Designate this month, which include The Planets by Gustav Holst, what she described as “some of the best orchestral music ever written. It’s very unique. It’s called The Planets, but at the time Holst was getting into this piece, he actually became interested in astrology. He was becoming a good interpreter of horoscopes. And then music, he said, started to form in his head.” 

She pointed out the order of the movements, which, in the first draft, seemed to start with Mercury, the Winged Messenger. But the work ultimately and famously opens with Mars, Bringer of War instead. All the other movements are seemingly ordered by the positions of the planets in the solar system. “He wanted a much bigger opening. It’s more dramatic. It’s more disturbing. It starts quiet. But it builds up to be this really sort of monstrous war … and the final movement, Neptune, the Mystic, ends with a female chorus, wordless, just sort of a humming sound.” Xian does not yet know where the female chorus will go. “Usually they’re behind the scenes, behind the stage, or somewhere far off on the balcony, and they’re not supposed to be seen. They are supposed to sound from far away. That’s for better effect.”   

This program is particularly thrilling with the addition of high-definition NASA imagery, echoing back to her first visit featuring film-and-live-score with Alexander Nevsky. “I’m a believer in bringing multimedia together to enhance the enjoyment. And in this case, I like it a little more because the images are run by a technician and she will take music as her cue instead of me taking the film as my musical cue. That’s much harder.”  

Opening the evening is Billy Childs’ saxophone concerto, Diaspora. “This piece was commissioned by nine different orchestras,” she said, including Aspen Music Festival. “I did the premieres in Aspen and with the National Symphony in D.C., with Stephen Banks, and he, as a soloist, totally changed my understanding and my view of the saxophone as an instrument. And he’s been such a champion of bringing the saxophone repertoire into the core standard symphonic repertoire. Steven himself, he’s also a composer. Educator, chamber music performer. He does a lot. [Composer] Billy Childs, we actually had the chance to have dinner together in Aspen when we did the premiere. He’s a jazz pianist, and he has several Grammy-winning jazz albums. But this particular piece, I actually find it, in a way, not as jazzy as I expected. I think he put a lot of thought into it. Each of the movements are distinct, with their own tempo, rhythm.”   

Diaspora is written for both alto and tenor sax. “So, you see the soloist switching in the concert between the two. It’s a beautiful piece and people just go wild. Everywhere we’ve done the piece, it’s been hit. A great commission, I have to say, very successful.” 

She is looking forward to her future with the orchestra, especially performing works by living composers and new commissions alongside the classics. Her goal is to make the orchestra and Benaroya Hall more of a cultural hub, as she puts it, “a big magnet to draw people in. Especially people of a wider range of backgrounds as well as ages, particularly children and young professionals in their 20s, early 30s. … Seattle is very fortunate. Benaroya Hall has a great organ and the Chorale is fantastic. Not many orchestras in the U.S. have both. I want the people of Seattle to take pride in their orchestra, because the Seattle Symphony and the musicians in the orchestra really deserve to be recognized and to be praised.” Bringing in new audiences and further building on existing audiences are just a few of her goals. “I also wish to explore the possibilities of touring internationally. That’s very much on my mind. To Asia, to Europe. I believe the Seattle Symphony is one of the top orchestras in this country. I wish to show our real potential and our strengths to the world.” 

Holst The Planets: An HD Odyssey happens on March 27, 29 & 30, 2025. For more info or to read the program notes, click here. 

Music Director Designate Xian Zhang is generously sponsored by Dr. and Mrs. Charles and Lisa Simonyi and an anonymous donor. 

Xian Zhang’s performances are generously sponsored by Heidi Charleson and Lou Woodworth*. 

Steven Banks’ performances are generously sponsored by Betty Graham.  

Performances of Holst the Planets are generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. William G. Reed, Jr.