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CONTACT: Judy Moore at 847-491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

FOR RELEASE: April 10, 2007

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Bassist DaXun Zhang Wins
Avery Fisher Career Grant

EVANSTON, Ill. --- DaXun Zhang, lecturer in double bass at the Northwestern University School of Music, has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant for 2007.

Considered one of the most prestigious awards in the music world, these grants of $25,000 give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists and ensembles who are considered by the music industry to have great potential for major careers.

In addition to Zhang, the 2007 recipients include the Borromeo String Quartet and violinist Yura Lee. The Grants Program is administered by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and was established in 1976.

Artists who are awarded Career Grants have no idea they are under consideration; they do not apply directly. A Recommendation Board, comprising conductors, instrumentalists, music educators, composers, managers and presenters, nominates artists and an Executive Committee makes final selections. Past recipients have included pianist Ursula Oppens, the Northwestern University School of Music’s John Evans Professor of Music Performance; violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Gil Shaham and Sarah Chang, and dozens of others.
Avery Fisher, lifelong lover and benefactor of classical music, shared with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts a great commitment to nurturing performers. Fisher established the Avery Fisher Artist Program, which includes the Avery Fisher Prize and Avery Fisher Career Grants to give outstanding instrumentalists significant recognition on which to continue to build their careers. These musicians, who must be U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents, receive these awards based on excellence alone.

DaXun Zhang, age 24, has been heralded worldwide as a virtuoso of the double bass. He was the first bassist to win the Young Concert Artists Auditions (2003), and in that competition also was awarded the Claire Tow Prize, which sponsored his New York debut, and the Washington Performing Arts Society Prize, which sponsored his Washington, D.C. debut at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He was the first double bassist ever to win First Prize in the 2003 WAMSO-Minnesota Orchestra Volunteer Association Young Artist Competition, and in 2001 became the youngest artist ever to win the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. He also has been the recipient of the Grand Prize of the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition.

Zhang has performed and toured with Yo-Yo Ma’s “Silk Road Project,” including concerts in Japan, California and at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Zhang can be heard on the soundtrack of a 10-part documentary series on the Silk Road that aired on Japan’s national broadcast channel, NHK, and also was released as a compact disc (Sony Classical). Other performances have included an appearance at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Keith Lockhart conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, (Fla.), the La Jolla Music Society Summerfest (Calif.), and many others. In the current season he is performing as a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II and in October 2007 will appear with the Silk Road Ensemble in the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics in Shanghai.

Zhang comes from a family of bassists in Harbin, China. He began double bass studies at age nine and at 11 attended the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He continued his studies in the United States at the Interlochen Arts Academy and received an Artist Diploma from Indiana University, where he worked with Lawrence Hurst. Zhang has been a Northwestern University School of Music faculty member since 2005.

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