With her exceptional musicality and virtuosity, Jing Zhao has established herself internationally as one of the most versatile cellists of her generation.
Jing has performed with numerous prestigious conductors, including Yuri Bashmet, Myung-whun Chung, Jean Fournet, Eliahu Inbal, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Seiji Ozawa, Mikhael Pletnev, Muhai Tang and Jaap van Zweden. She has collaborated with orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Symphoniker Hamburg – Laeiszhalle Orchestra, the Lübeck Philharmonic, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orquestra Clássica da Madeira, the Sydney Symphony, the Singapore Symphony, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the China Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony Orchestra.
A passionate chamber musician, Jing regularly performs with artists such as Martha Argerich, Elena Bashkirova, Guy Braunstein, Boris Berezovsky, Bertrand Chamayou, Michael Guttman, Daishin Kashimoto, Denis Kozhukhin, Eric Le Sage, Konstantin Lifschitz, Igor Levit, Emmanuel Pahud, Trevor Pinnock, Vadim Repin, Antoine Tamestit, Maxim Vengerov and Lilya Zilberstein.
Jing Zhao is Co-Artistic Director of the Pietrasanta in Concerto Music Festival in Italy and an artist in residence at Crans-Montana Classics in Switzerland. She is also a permanent special guest of Odessa Classics, founded in Odessa, Ukraine, and now based in various European cities. Martha Argerich has chosen to perform and record the Tchaikovsky Trio with Jing Zhao and Dora Schwarzberg at her festival in Lugano, where Jing is now a regular guest. Other festivals at which she has performed include the celebrated Jerusalem Music Festival, Zagreb International Festival, Rolandseck, Bad Kissingen, Istanbul International Festival, Argerich’s Beppu Music Festival, the Hamburg Festival and La Folle Journée, among others.
Jing Zhao has recorded five CDs for Victor Entertainment in Japan. Two further recordings, made before the pandemic with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and featuring the Shostakovich Cello Concerto and two Cello Concertos by Tan Dun, respectively, are due to be released in the upcoming season.
Winner of First Prize at the prestigious ARD International Competition in Munich in 2005, Jing Zhao was also a recipient of the Exxon Mobil Music Award in Japan in 2009. She began her musical studies in China and Japan and received generous support from Maestro Seiji Ozawa early in her career. She subsequently moved to Berlin to study at the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker. She also studied with the renowned cellist Prof. David Geringas at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and privately with Yo-Yo Ma and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Jing currently plays a Matteo Goffriller cello (1711), generously loaned to her by a private foundation.