Prof. Zhi-Jong Wang

Zhi-Jong Wang made her solo debut at the age of 14 with Orchestre national de Lille under Sir Yehudi Menuhin in France, since then she has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras, including Orchestre National de Radio France, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Turku Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorcheser Berlin, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others. She collaborates with musicians such as Yuri Temirkanov, Gidon Kremer, Lynn Harrel, Matthias Bamert, Okko Kamu, John Storgårds, Lior Shambadal, Christian Arming, Muhai Tang, Jia Lü, Guoyang Zhang, Yang Yang, etc.

Zhi-Jong’s recent accomplishments include her debut recital at the Lucerne Festival, highly acclaimed performances with the Osaka Century Orchestra and with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Tadaaki Otaka, and her debut at the Philharmonie Berlin.

As well as performing the standard violin repertoire, Zhi-Jong is a passionate exponent of contemporary music, performing works by Gubaidulina, Lutoslawski, Schnittke, Ligeti, etc. In the recent seasons, she premiered Ana Sokolovic’s Commedia dell'arte III and Nikolai Badinski’s Violin Concerto No.2.

Following her first concert leading the orchestra from the violin with Ensemble Orchestral de Paris performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5 at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, ‘play-conducting’ has attracted Zhi-Jong’s interest and in recent seasons she has played/conducted Vivaldi/Piazzolla’s Four Seasons and several of the Mozart concerti.

Zhi-Jong is the laureate of many important competitions beginning with First Prize in the 1998 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition. In the same year, she also won the First Prize of the China National Violin Competition, where she was the youngest first prize winner ever. In the following years Zhi-Jong Wang has distinguished herself receiving prizes in the Sibelius Violin Competition, Lipizer Violin Competition, Tchaikovsky Competition, etc. Her CD is released by Accentus Music. Her recent release includes Sibelius and Stravinsky violin concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Thomas Sanderling.

Zhi-Jong is currently Professor and Deputy Director of the Orchestra Department at Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She plays on a 1716 Stradivarius kindly on loan from China Foundation.