 The following year he won the first-prize in Mae M. Whitaker International Competition for Voice.While in his first year of the Merola Opera Program, Zhou toured the US with Western Opera Theater (the now-defunct touring arm of San Francisco Opera) as Enrico in "Lucia di Lammermoor", a role he would reprise at Vancouver Opera in 2000.In 1992, he again toured with Western Opera Theater as Giorgio Germont in "La traviata".