Musician, author, and satirist Peter Schickele is an active composer and lecturer. He studied composition with Roy Harris and Darius Milhaud, and at The Juilliard School of Music with Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma. The New York Philharmonic performed his Sneaky Pete and the Wolf, based on Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, at its Gala New Year’s Eve Concert in 1991, and his Symphony No. 1 in 1998. Mr. Schickele is the host of the syndicated radio program, Schickele Mix, which has been heard nationwide over Public Radio International since January 1992.

Mr. Schickele’s works number more than 100 for symphony orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles, voice, movies, and television. His commissions are numerous and varied, ranging from works for the National Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Minnesota Opera, to The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Audubon and Lark string quartets. He created the musical score for the film version of Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are, and arranged one of the musical segments for Disney’s animated feature film Fantasia 2000. As a well-known perpetrator of the oeuvre of the now-classic P.D.Q. Bach, Mr. Schickele is acknowledged as one of the great satirists of the 20th century. Vanguard has released 11 albums of the fabled genius’s works; Random House has published 11 editions of The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach; Theodore Presser has printed numerous scores; and Video Arts International has produced a cassette of P.D.Q. Bach’s only full-length opera, The Abduction of Figaro.

Mr. Schickele was born in Ames, Iowa, and grew up in Washington, D.C., and Fargo, North Dakota, where he studied composition with Sigvald Thompson. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1957, and by that time had already composed and conducted four orchestral works, chamber music, and songs. Following his studies at The Juilliard School he composed music for high schools in Los Angeles before returning to teach at Juilliard in 1961. In 1965 he gave up teaching to become the freelance composer/performer he is today.

Xian Zhang became music director of La Verdi (the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi) at the start of the 2009–10 season. In April 2009 she conducted that orchestra in a concert at the Salla Nervi of the Vatican City for the Pope and President of the Republic of Italy. Prior to this appointment, she served as the New York Philharmonic’s Associate Conductor (and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair) for three years, having previously held the position of Assistant Conductor.

In Europe, future highlights include debuts with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, where her program includes the world premiere of Mikko Heiniö’s Moon Concerto; and Orchestre National de Belgique, with whom she will appear at the Europalia Festival. Other European engagements include the London Symphony Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia at the Verona Festival, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Residentie Orkest, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. She will also conduct the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, SWR Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, and Vienna Symphony at the 2011 Bregenz Festival, and the ORF Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien at the Vienna Konzerthaus.

In North America, upcoming engagements include her debuts with the New Jersey and National Symphony Orchestras; The Minnesota Orchestra; and a return to the Juilliard Orchestra, following her recent tour with the ensemble to China. Last season she appeared with the Chicago, Toronto, and Indianapolis symphony orchestras and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As an opera conductor, Xian Zhang made her debut with Puccini’s La bohème for English National Opera in spring 2007, and conducted Puccini’s Turandot in Beijing in May 2009.

Born in Dandong, China, Xian Zhang made her professional debut conducting Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Central Opera House in Beijing at the age of 20. She trained at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, earning both her bachelor and master of music degrees, and served one year on its conducting faculty before moving to the United States in 1998.