Hi, I'm Austin Zhang, a first-generation Chinese-American raised in suburban Texas, now a saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer based in New York City.

Earlier in 2022, the United Nations Human Rights division along with This Alien Nation commissioned a composition from me to counter reductively negative views of immigration. I recorded my mother detailing her story of escape from Mao-ist China in search of freedom and opportunity and scored her story with music for saxophone and electronics. I live performed the score at Joe’s Pub in NYC. The UN later interviewed me about my work and the piece on their Stand Up 4 Human Rights podcast. Additionally, I led a jazz quintet at the first AAPI Jazz Festival that celebrated the often overlook minority of Asian jazz musicians in the midst of record-settings rates of hate crime against Asian Americans.

My early career revolved around becoming the most masterful jazz saxophonist I could be. I practiced obsessively for ten years, graduated from the Manhattan School of Music with scholarship, and went on to perform with giants of jazz music: Wynton Marsalis, Terri Lyne Carrington, Wycliffe Gordon, the Mingus Big Band, and others. My saxophone has been heard at such venues as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Joe's Pub, Newport Jazz Festival, and internationally in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and the Netherlands.

My playing seeks to emulate the expressiveness of the human voice on the saxophone as I take primary inspiration from vocalists. With a love of groove that ranges from bebop and swing to Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind & Fire, my compositions combine the improvisation and language of jazz with the wider context of many artists I love. I seek to bring audiences warmth, beauty, and good vibes in today's increasingly frenetic and stressed world.