Zhi-Jong Wang, Violinist

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 Philharmonique de Radio France, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra,  Helsinki  Philharmonic Orchestra,  Turku  Symphony  Orchestra, Konzerthausorcheser Berlin, Berliner Symphoniker (in Berlin Philharmonie), Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Century Symphony, NHK Symphony, as well as orchestras from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, etc.. She collaborates with musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, Yuri Temirkanov, Myung-Whun Chung, Gidon Kremer, Lynn Harrel, Matthias Bamert, Okko Kamu, John Storgårds, Lior Shambadal, Christian Arming, Muhai Tang, Xieyang Chen, Jia Lü, Guoyang Zhang, Yang Yang, Yi Zhang, Daye Lin, etc. At the invitation of Maestro Claudio Abbado, Zhi-Jong joined Lucerne Festival Orchestra.  Zhi-Jong is the first ever Chinese musician to appear in solo recital in Lucerne Festival.

 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.

In 2020, Zhi-Jong established Ensemble Epoch，toured in many China cities, and was high praised. As its artistic director, Zhi-Jong develops artistic plan. On stage, she is soloist and conductor. Ensemble Epoch brings music to a broader space, hoping to interpret the music of various eras in non-traditional forms and diverse combinations, and constantly explore the possibility of ensemble art.

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 achievements have attracted world-wide attention, and claimed by critics as “combination of exquisite skill and rich expressive power”, and “one of the most versatile violinists of our generation”.

Her CD is released by Accentus Music. Sibelius and Stravinsky violin concertos with Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Thomas Sanderling was nominated by ICMA. Her second album features Chinese violin concertos, including He Zhanhao/Chen Gang “Butterfly Lovers” and Shen Ye “Violin Concerto”, collaborated with Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Yang Yang. Zhi-Jong and Ensemble Epoch will appear in the forthcoming release.

Zhi-Jong has studied at Shanghai Conservatory of Music with the renowned Chinese violinist Professor Lina Yu. Afterwards, she studied with Kolja Blacher at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin, where she also worked as Professor Blacher’s assistant.

She is currently professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and deputy director of Orchestral Instruments Department. She plays a Stradivarius 1716 kindly loaned by China Foundation, and uses Il Cannone Gold by Larsen Strings.