Tiffany Zhao
About

A young artist between two stages

Tiffany Qianxun Zhao — composer, vocalist, flutist, and martial artist. Exploring the space where Western classical music meets Chinese tradition.

Tiffany in performance

I started composing as a child in Connecticut. Spring Snow, the first piece I held onto, was written in March 2021 — a small piano work inspired by Han Yu's classical poem, and by the squirrels and foxes outside the window of the room where I was studying abroad.

In October 2024, I premiered a chamber opera, Swaying Hope (摇曳的希望), at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall — written for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp benefit concert presented by Meng Wang Music Inc. The next spring, I picked up the flute and performed Late June (六月末) at the FDR Presidential Library with the Hevreh Ensemble, in a concert marking the 80th anniversary of victory over fascism. At the start of 2026, the Boston International Symphony Orchestra premiered Sail Day at Cary Hall — another New Year, another benefit.

I also sing. At Boston's annual New Year's Charity Concert I performed Part of Your World as a solo in 2024, and returned in 2025 as a featured soloist at the BISO Inaugural Concert, singing Funiculì Funiculà with three guest artists, the Boston International Symphony Orchestra, and the Highland Glee Club.

Alongside the music, I practice traditional Chinese martial arts — Baguazhang, sword forms, fan, and heavier weapons. In November 2025 I won 1st place in Girls 15–17 Advanced Baguazhang at the 15th New England International Chinese Martial Arts Championships (USAWKF). I have also performed at Phillips Academy's Grasshopper Night two years running — Double Sword in 2023 and Taiji Fan in 2024. The two practices began in different rooms, with different teachers and different vocabularies. They are starting to feel like one thing.

This site is a small attempt to gather what I have made so far — not as a résumé, but as an honest record of a practice in progress.

Philosophy

Three ideas I return to

Idea

Listen, then move

Music taught me to hear the smallest things — a breath, a hesitation. Wushu taught me what to do with that listening: respond, root, redirect.

Idea

Across two languages

I grew up between Western harmony and the patient circles of Chinese tradition. Both are languages of structure and surprise; I am learning to translate between them.

Idea

Music with a purpose

The works that have meant the most to me — Swaying Hope, A Journey of Adaption, Sail Day — were written for a cause: a benefit, a forum, a community. I want music that does something in the world.

Quick Facts

The short version

School
Phillips Academy
Primary practice
Composition
Also performs as
Vocalist, Flutist, Pianist
Premiered at
Carnegie Hall · Cary Hall · FDR Library · BISO
Martial disciplines
Baguazhang, Sword, Fan, Pō Dāo
Championship
1st Place — 2025 New England Wushu (USAWKF)
Languages
English, Mandarin Chinese