Since the start of the 2009/10 season Xian Zhang has been music director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. Before that she was assistant, and then deputy, to the conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. In summer 2011 Xian Zhang will become musical director of the NJO / Dutch Orchestra and Ensemble Academy. As a guest conductor she has worked with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Residentie Orkest, the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich, the NDR Sinfonieorchester, the RSO Vienna, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony, the Danish National Symphony and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She is shortly to return to the London Symphony Orchestra, the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra and the SWR Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart for concerts. Last season she made her debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in March 2010 at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and in a separate chamber music programme. She also made her debut in a concert with the orchestra of La Fenice in Venice. In the USA she made her debut with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra and returned to the conductor's podium of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor Xian Zhang made a sensational debut with La Bohème at English National Opera. She also conducted Turandot in Beijing in 2009. Her forthcoming productions are Le Renard and Le Rossignol by Stravinsky for De Nederlandse Opera (2012/13) and Thomas Adès' The Tempest at the Teatro alla Scala (2013/14), all to be directed by Robert Lepage.