Zhang, who is also the founder and organizer of the China Youth Music Competition-Hummingbird Music Award, said it aims to promote amateur music education, especially in chamber music, so applicants are not necessarily in full-time music training institutes.

Zhang, a former music learner, founded the Beijing International Music Competition, which brought together professional international musicians, in 2006. In 2014 he met Benedikt Holtbernd, the artistic manager of the nonprofit arm of the German Music Council in Munich, where the Jugend Musiziert's headquarters are located. Since then it has become an important cultural exchange event between young people of China and Germany.