Chinese violist Zhanbo Zheng started his musical education when he took his first violin lesson at the age of five. At 11, attracted by the warm and beautiful sound of the viola, he decided to become a violist. In 2014, Zheng became the first Chinese violist to win the Primrose International Viola Competition. He is also the top-prize winner of other major competitions, including the Irving M. Klein International String Competition and the Washington International Competition for Strings. An avid chamber musician, Zheng has made appearances at various music festivals, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Verbier Festival Academy, Caramoor Evnin Rising Stars, and ChamberFest Cleveland. He has been invited to perform at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society as a guest artist and has toured the United States several times with Musicians from Marlboro and the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Kaufman Music Center, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. As a soloist, Zheng has performed with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, San José Chamber Orchestra, China Broadcasting Performing Arts Orchestra, and EOS Orchestra of Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 2014, he participated in the recording project “My Concert Hall–The Classical Music Appreciation,” which was proposed by Lanqing Li, the former Vice Premier of the State Council of China. Zheng earned his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Kim Kashkashian, Miriam Fried, and Dominique Eade. He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Juilliard School under the mentorship of Paul Neubauer.