Kitty Xiao

Kitty Xiao is a composer, producer and interdisciplinary artist from Naarm/Melbourne, based in New York. Her music moves between electroacoustic composition, video, and live electronic sets which explore cultural movement, technology, and physical embodiment. Currently her work is concerned with questions that arise from the body, the experience it carries, and its role in social change. Through exploring limits of perception and sensation her music seeks to discover interconnectedness between social bodies and imaginaries. 

Her music is represented by the Australian Music Centre and she is the recipient of the 2022 APRA Professional Development Award (AU), 2021 Sounds Australia Export Stimulus Program (AU), 2020 Belle S. Gitelman Award (US), 2019 Howard Hanson Large Ensemble Prize (US) and is an Alfred Kitchin scholar (UK). She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Music Composition at Columbia University, her composition mentors include Zosha Di Castri, Georg Friedrich Haas, George Lewis, David Liptak, Robert Morris and Anthony Lyons.

Selected performances of her work include: Ensemble Modern (GER), Darmstädter Ferienkurse (GER), Mivos Quartet (US), Sarasota Orchestra (US), Switch~ Ensemble (US), OSSIA New Music (US), line upon line percussion (US), Transient Canvas (US), Panoramic Voices (US), Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra (US), Frequency Shift (US), Modular World (US), Slow Rise Music (CAN), Modulate TV (UK), Elysium Dance (UK), Brighton Fashion Week (UK), Australian National Academy of Music (AU), Syzygy Ensemble (AU), Arts Centre Melbourne (AU), Melbourne Composer’s League (AU), Plexus (AU), Clan Analogue (AU); her work being featured on their album Coordinates.  She was nominated for Best Original Score by the 2019 Olympus Film Festival in Los Angeles for her work on the short film Solus. Kitty released her first album Novum with Nimbus Trio in 2016 with Move Records, and was Artistic Director of the Six Piano Project in 2017. 

Kitty holds a Master of Music (Composition) at the Eastman School of Music (US), a Master of Music (Performance) from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (UK), Master of Teaching and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Melbourne (AU) and attended Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (AU).