Taking her place

Zhang Xian works with celebrated orchestras around the world and has regularly performed in China since 2008.[Photo provided to China Daily]

She's coaching several women in the US.

Zhang doesn't believe gender is related to conducting.

"It's about musical ability and personality," she says.

Zhang was born in Liaoning province's Dandong and was exposed to music as a child.

Her given name, Xian, means string－a reference to her parents' hopes she'd become a musician.

Her father repaired an old piano for her, and her mother, who majored in music education in college, taught her to play at age 3.

She studied piano at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music at age 11 and stayed at the conservatory until she moved to the US in '98 to complete doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati College's Conservatory of Music.