Musical Works

After improvising for several years, Xia started composing formally at the age of twelve. They studied with Kate Honey, Ewan Campbell, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Simon Speare (the latter at the Royal College of Music Junior Department) and in 2018, they started studying at the Royal Northern College of Music as a Principal Study composer with Professor Emily Howard. They graduated in 2021 with First Class Honours and in 2022, they achieved a Distinction in their Master in Composition and Musicology from the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of Dr Laura Bowler and Steven Daverson.

Xia’s music is inspired by a wide range of philosophical, Buddhist and environmental themes. The use and effect of silence in music fascinate them, perhaps as a result of their love of Buddhism. If you would like to see scores and hear recordings of the pieces Xia composed between the ages of 12 and 16, please contact them. The Ensembles who have performed their early works during that time include Dr K Sextet, The Hermes Experiment, The Ligeti Quartet, The Phaedra Ensemble, Block4 recorder quartet, the BBC Young Chorister of the Year Agatha Pethers, The Chamber Choir of St Mary’s University Church in Cambridge and Aldeburgh Young Musicians.

Butterfly massacre

In peals of aether

To kneel in the heart of a storm

Brink

Nacreous

Phoenix

Seriamos como cisnes

Earthward

Thread

Acres

Snow Angels

Ricochets

Flood Warning

Gate, gate

Elegy for Aylan