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Demian Austin

Demian Austin is principal trombonist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is also a member of the MET Chamber Ensemble, which performs regularly at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel halls. He has performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and in the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center. Mr. Austin has played on numerous recordings including the Metropolitan Opera Brass CDs, several movie soundtracks, Dialogues with Double Bass with Jeremy McCoy on Bridge Records, the GM Recordings issue of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Brahms’ First Symphony conducted by Gunther Schuller, and many recordings with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, including Strauss’ Tod und Verklarung. He can also be heard regularly on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Live at the Met Broadcasts, the Saturday Matinee Broadcasts of the Met, and on The Met: Live in HD worldwide movie simulcasts. Mr. Austin is also on the faculty of Juilliard’s precollege division. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1992 from Oberlin College, where he studied with Raymond Premru, and his Masters of Music degree in 1995 from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Per Brevig. Aside from his career in music, Mr. Austin has a keen interest in film and has attended several intensive seminars on screenwriting.

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Qiang Zhang

A world-famous pipa virtuoso, Professor Zhang Qiang is the Director of the String Instrument Division of the Chinese Music Department at the China Central Conservatory of Music (CCMO). After graduating from CCMO in 1987, Professor Zhang had devoted himself to teaching at CCMO as a pipa instructor for almost three decades. He has been a judge at major domestic and international instrumental music competitions and has been invited to give lectures at many educational institutions. In addition to his traditional approach in systematic technique training, Professor Zhang focuses on the cultivation of students' music awareness and strongly urges his students to explore and display personal character in performing. Many of his students stand out as national winners of China’s highest-level competitions. Professor Zhang is an active performer throughout China and abroad. He has regularly appeared in international music festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center Festival of Contemporary Music, Berlin Art Week, Torino Art Festival, and other festivals held in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. His musical collaborations also include the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and China National Symphony Orchestra, Dutch New Orchestra, China Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, China Radio National Orchestra, Shanghai National Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Taipei National Orchestra, Guangdong National Orchestra, Macau Chinese Orchestra and Singapore Chinese Orchestra. He was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, Musikverein (Golden Hall in Vienna), Lincoln Center in New York City. His work features solo pieces for pipa, concertos, traditional repertoires, and he actively engages in contemporary chamber music. Professor Zhang maintains a lifelong devotion to academic research. Together with three professors from CCMO, he has been working on a historical preservation project, Xian Suo Bei Kao, imparing, performing and eventually completing the full-scale (1814 manuscripts) music on the ancient spectrum of the Qing Dynasty.