Biography
"His technique is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Zhang is, without a doubt, on the cusp of a great career."
- The Toronto Star
'' Virtuosity is self-evident with him; With him everything is music, and only music. One needs only to have experienced the refined touch of this pianist from China and his intuitive understanding of the music...”.
- Rheinsche Post
His debut CD is a hit in his native China and more than 30,000 copies have been sold, ensuring that he is a recognized personality in the world of music in China.
His Liszt CD is scheduled with the famous German label- Haenssler CLASSIC, regarding the Liszt 200. Anniversary, appear on the market worldwide in January 2011. In cooperation with C. Bechstein, a concert tour follows throughout Germany, in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt a.M., Cologne, Dusseldorf and Tuebingen, settled with the CD presentation same time.
In the 2009/2010 Season, Haiou Zhang will be a soloist on an extensive Canadian tour with the Slovak Sinfonietta under the direction of Kerry Stratton. Further projects include Mozart and Mendelssohn piano concertos with the Heidelberger Sinfoniker under Thomas Fey touring Germany and Brazil, his début with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.3 in d minor, piano recital débuts at the Konzerthaus Berlin, at Sylt Art Festival, at the Warburger Meisterkonzerte Series, the Mozart Festival- Mozartiade in Augsburg and the Festival International de Musique de Besançon in France.
In recent seasons, young pianist Haiou Zhang has enjoyed great success, receiving wide recognition by international critics and audiences in Europe, the Far East and the United States. Earlier career highlights included his performances at the 2005/2006 Braunschweig Classix Festival which were enthusiastically received by the public. This lead to invitations to participate as a soloist at leading European music festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, International Beethovenfest Bonn, Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Kissinger Sommer, the Pierre Cardin Academy Festival in Paris and the Amiata Piano Festival in Italy. In the 2007/2008 season he has been the featured soloist at major concert halls in Germany, such as the Berliner Philharmonie, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Munich Gasteig, Tonhalle Dusseldorf, Cologne Congress Center, Potsdam Nikolaisaal and the NDR Radio Hall Hannover.
Further engagements took him to Canada performing his orchestral solo debut with the Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of Kerry Stratton in the opening concert at the Toronto Centre for the Arts in Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. The Classical KFHM 95.5 featured his USA debut in the Simms Center for the Performing Arts of Albuquerque in 2008. Additional invitations followed from performance venues in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.
In earlier seasons, Mr. Zhang appeared as an orchestral soloist with the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Klassik Philharmonie Hamburg, the Polish Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the BSO - Beijing Symphony Orchestra in the Forbidden City Beijing.
Haiou Zhang regularly gives interviews and concerts at international broadcasting and TV stations, such as CCTV, 3Sat, SF1, France télévision 3, The Classical FM 96.3, Bayerische Rundfunk, NDR, WDR, Radio Bremen, Deutschlandradio Kultur and the Deutsche Welle TV.
As a chamber musician he became the Gold Medalist of the 1st National Piano-Duo Competition in China. After his major success at the International Vladimir Horowitz Piano Competition in Kiev, he has been invited to produce a CD for the NDR (North German Radio). In 2005, Haiou Zhang was awarded the prestigious Gundlach Music Prize in Germany. Since then, he was awarded scholarships from the Theodor Lessing Foundation and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in 2007, the Ottilie Selbach Redslob Foundation in Berlin and the Dr. Carl Doerken Foundation in 2009.