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Niu Niu is a pianist and former child prodigy who took up the piano at age three and gave his first performance at six. He was making international appearances while still a preteen. Niu Niu has made the transition to an adult career, recording albums for several major labels. In 2024, he issued a recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

Niu Niu was born July 11, 1997, in Xiamen in China's Fujian province. His birth name is Zhang Shengliang; Niu Niu is a nickname meaning Little Ox, derived from his birth in the Year of the Ox. He took his first lessons from his father, and at his debut recital, he performed a Mozart sonata and a Chopin etude. At eight, Niu Niu enrolled at the Shanghai Conservatory, where he was the school's youngest student in history. At ten, he moved to Massachusetts to become a student of Hung-Kuan Chen at the New England Conservatory, also taking regular high school courses at the Walnut Hill Academy. Niu Niu's professional career began in 2006 when he performed at Wigmore Hall in London; the following year, he performed the Shostakovich Concerto for piano, trumpet, and orchestra, Op. 35, in London, with Prince Charles in the audience.

Niu Niu gave a recital at Suntory Hall in Tokyo in 2009, becoming the youngest performer ever to appear there, and in 2010, he was the youngest-ever winner of the PRIX Montblanc Award. The winner of the first Artemisia Foundation prize in 2012, he appeared at Jordan Hall in Boston and Sprague Hall at Yale University. In 2013, he released his debut album on the EMI/Warner Classics label, a recording of Liszt transcriptions. Other career highlights include dubbing the piano performance of the manga character Wei Pang in the Japanese NHK network's animated version of Piano no Mori ("Forest of Piano") in 2018 and 2019. Niu Niu released the album Beethoven: Fate & Hope on the Decca label in 2021. It had been recorded in 2019, but he remained active in the recording studio despite Chinese COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. He recorded the recital album Lifetime in 2022 and released it on Decca the following year. In 2024, he joined conductor Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra on Decca for a recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. For 2024 and 2025, Niu Niu planned an international tour that would include the U.S. ~ James Manheim