He began to study music at the age of three, and at the age of seven he conducted the Symphony Orchestra of the Vladikavkaz Philharmonic for the first time. In 2011 he entered the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire (class of Gennady Rozhdestvensky), already having experience of appearing with Russia's leading orchestras, among them the Mariinsky Orchestra, the State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, the Moscow Virtuosi and the Novaya Rossiya ensemble.

Since 2012 he has been a staff conductor with the Academic Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theatre. His repertoire includes over thirty opera and ballet productions in addition to many symphonic opuses.

In May 2022, Timur Zangiev made his debut at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. In June 2022, he became the principal guest conductor of the Theatre.

Recent engagements include concerts with the Russian National Orchestra, the Evgeny Svetlanov State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow State Academic Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Pavel Kogan, Chamber Orchestra Musica Viva, the orchestra of the Novaya Opera Theatre; performances of The Queen of Spades at La Scala, Mayerling at the at the Bavarian State Opera, Iolanta with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, Tosca, The Snow Maiden, Eugene Onegin, Dubrovsky and the premiere of the operas Mozart and Salieri and Kaschey the Immortal at the Mariinsky Theatre, The Rake’s Progress at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre.

In 2019 maestro Zangiev made his Bolshoi Theatre debut with a new production of one-act ballets Symphony in C and Gaîté Parisienne. In 2020 he was a member of the production team for the opera Sadko.