“Some ladies don’t like to be asked this question,” says Xian Zhang. “But I’m happy to talk about it”. The question is that question, the one that female conductors are always asked, namely: “Why aren’t there more of you?”

Today it is announced that Zhang is the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s new principal guest conductor, a role which will make her one of the UK’s most prominent female conductors – she’s the first woman to have a titled conducting role with a BBC orchestra – and which means she’s going to be asked about the representation of her gender in the echelons in the conducting profession a great deal.

“The more we ask these questions, the more people will get used to the idea of women conducting, and this will speed up the process of getting more women into the profession. We need to bring up the number of female of conductors. There are not enough girls doing it well as professionals. Once there are more, then we can judge how good they are,” she says.

When girls see other women doing this job, they will feel that they can do it too.

Xian Zhang is already a hugely successful and acclaimed conductor. She has a long relationship with the New York Philharmonic, regularly works with Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the London Symphony Orchestra, has recently been leading La Bohème at English National Opera, and will join BBCNOW from September 2016.

Unlike in the west, where the vast majority of conducting mentors in conservatoires and colleges are men, in China, Zhang had two female conducting teachers, and didn’t think about the gender issue. It was only when she moved to Europe and America that she saw there was even a problem. “I looked around and realised: ‘Oh, maybe I’m the only girl here.’ It never occurred to me before. But when girls see other women doing this job, they will feel that they can do it too.”

Born in Dandong, China, Zhang made her professional debut conducting The Marriage of Figaro at the Central Opera House in Beijing aged 20. She trained at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, and moved to the US in 1998. She was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s assistant conductor in 2002, subsequently becoming their associate conductor and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini chair. As she begins her Welsh role, she will be shuttling across the Atlantic – another new appointment, as music director of New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, starts the same season.

Since 2009 she’s been music director of Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in Milan. There, she says she had to convince audiences as well as musicians, but believes they have formed a relationship with her because she is a mother. “I became close to them, and I felt strong support, because they respect mothers very much, and they love children”.

‘Most other orchestras are passive. The BBCNOW musicians want to be really involved.’

Xian Zhang. Photograph: B Ealovega/PR

During Zhang’s three-year appointment in Cardiff, she will conduct the BBC orchestra in annual concerts at BBC Hoddinott Hall, St David’s Hall and Brangwyn Hall, with repertoire featuring Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rimsky-Korsakov and Berlioz in her first season. BBCNOW will also perform at the Proms under Zhang’s baton during her tenure and embark on an “on the road” tour around Wales.



She is full of admiration for the technical prowess of the Welsh orchestra: working on Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony with them, she says “the opening of the first movement is very hard to get it right, to get it clean, but they had it from the first reading – wow!” And she praises the way the musicians rehearse: “They are willing to ask your thoughts as a conductor on sound, on interpretation; they are actually curious to find out why you are doing things they way you are. That’s really special, because most other orchestras are more passive, and will just sit there. These musicians want to be really involved.”

Zhang is also looking forward to planning more adventurous programmes with the NOW players than she is able to with her orchestra in Milan: exploring contemporary Chinese music such as Qigang Chen’s, whose work she brought to the Proms with the BBCNOW last summer, and to working with young Welsh composers, as well as performing the big romantic Russian and French repertoire in which she has built up a stellar reputation.

She is having a honeymoon not just with the orchestra, but with Welsh audiences too. “The people are so down to earth, and so warm. They are very open-minded. I feel very comfortable in Welsh culture.” The country is lucky to have her energy, insight, and open-hearted enthusiasm on the podium, as well as her perspicacity as a cultural leader.