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Alexia Sloane (Classic FM)

After having improvised music for six years, Xia Leon Sloane, born in 2000, began taking formal composition lessons at the age of 12. Since then, they have been a composer with Aldeburgh Young Musicians, The National Youth Orchestra and the Britten Sinfonia Academy as well as a First Study Composer at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. They have been fortunate enough to have been selected as the winner of The Cambridge Young Composer of the Year, the Joan Weller Composition Prize, The Humphrey Searle Composition Award, the Royal Philharmonic Society/Classic FM 25th Birthday commissions and the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition. Their work has been performed by The BBC Concert OrchestraVOCES8The Aurora Orchestra, The Ligeti Quartet, The Brodsky String Quartet, The Hermes Experiment, The Phaedra Ensemble, Dr K Sextet, St Catharine’s Girls Choir, Kings Junior Voices and Ensemble 10/10, among others. They have also written for soloists such as Huw Watkins and Oliver Coates. Over the years, Xia has been generously supported by the Amber Trust, The Humphrey Searle Foundation and by a Gough Kelly Award at the RNCM.

In summer 2021, Xia graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with First-Class Honours as a Principal Study Composer under the tutelage of Professor Emily Howard, Dr Laura Bowler and Steven Daverson. In 2021, they started a one year intensive Master in Composition and  Musicology at the RNCM studying with Dr Laura Bowler and Steven Daverson and they graduated in July 2022 with a Distinction. Xia hopes to undertake training as a therapist, supporting healing through trauma-informed verbal, embodied and creative approaches. They are deeply concerned by the environmental, social and political issues that exist in contemporary times, and both their musical and literary work often reacts to one or more of these.